


Oh, my prince

by greyapplegeek



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3675384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyapplegeek/pseuds/greyapplegeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High School AU. Jongdae's drama class is setting up a play, and Sehun plays the prince who kisses the princess in the end. Jongdae gets extremely jealous and tries everything in his might to stop the kiss scene from happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The start of it all

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: The Tale of Snow White, the Prince and the Jealous Dwarf  
> this will probably be about six chapters long, if everything goes according to plan. the pairings are sechen, hunhan(-but-not-really) and maybe some surprise pairings in the future, we'll see ^^  
> worth to mention is that i've merged their ages a little bit so they'll all fit in a three-year high school. therefore the 90-91 liners are 3rd years, 92-93 liners are in their second year and jongin and sehun are attending their first year. also, the only real references i've used are the snow white movie and what i remember from when i took drama classes back in 4th-6th grade haha  
> hope you'll like the fic!

The atmosphere in the drama classroom was close to chaotic when Miss Hwang entered.

Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Tao were on stage doing some kind of improvised performance, with Tao freestyle rapping, Baekhyun singing loudly at random moments and Chanyeol beatboxing. Yifan had stolen a whole bunch of chairs and placed them next to each other, creating some sort of bench where he was now lying coolly while scrolling his phone, sometimes nodding and giving a thumbs up to the idiots on stage. Minseok and Kyungsoo were trying to build a skyscraper of all the classroom’s soundtrack CDs out of sheer boredom while they both, unlike Yifan, tried their best to ignore the stage performance. Jongin and Sehun had raided the props storage and were currently trying to tie a glittery pink feather boa around an unsuspecting Luhan, who was talking animatedly with Yixing (who totally noticed the two youngsters creeping up behind Luhan but was doing nothing to stop them).

Jongdae was just about to join the two when he noticed their teacher’s entrance. Before he even got the chance to react Junmyun appeared out of nowhere (where had he been until now?) and tried to tell everyone to be quiet and return to their seats, but with zero success.

However, when everyone saw Miss Hwang waiting for them expectantly, they obeyed and went back to their assigned seatings. Luhan ended up discovering the pranksters behind him and promptly took the feather boa from Jongin’s hands and tied it around the other instead. Sehun laughed at his friend, and Jongdae felt himself smile at the sight. Being the two youngest in their drama class, it was hard not to take a liking to the both of them. Especially the younger out of the two, with his sometimes awkward but at the same time playful personality. Jongdae realised he had missed Sehun over the holidays, this was the first time he’d seen the other since the end of last semester. With the two of them being in different years, the only class they shared was this one, their elective class.

  
  


When everyone had calmed down, their teacher clasped her hands.

“Since it’s the start of a new semester and all, let’s start anew and forget what happened earlier, including me being late”, she said with a pleasant laugh. Relieved sounds were heard throughout the classroom (Miss Hwang was probably everyone’s favourite teacher at that moment), and the teacher continued.

“For this semester, I’ve thought it’d be time for you to perform a real classic!” The excitement in her voice wasn’t very well hidden.

“Not another Shakespeare…” groaned Luhan, having flashbacks from his first year.

“No, I was thinking of something more… fantasy, I guess”, the teacher replied.

“Oh, ooh! Lord of the Rings!” Chanyeol shouted with enthusiasm.

“As a play?” Baekhyun uttered sarcastically, making some of the people in the room laugh, including their teacher.

“A bit more fairy tale-ish, I’d say”, she told them.

The classroom was soon filled with the sound of people shouting out their guesses, but Jongdae found himself not paying attention to the discussion, instead glancing at the boy in the seat in front of him. Sehun was still wearing a huge sombrero he’d taken from the props storage before, but beneath it Jongdae could still sneak a peek of his short hair, long neck and the shirt that hanged loosely over his slim shoulders. The mentioned shoulders seemed to have gotten somewhat wider since the last time Jongdae saw Sehun before the break, though. Actually, the whole boy seemed to have grown a little, he was now almost taller than Jongin, who had been taller than him at the beginning of the school year.

  
  


Jongdae recalled the first time he met Sehun. It was about half a year ago, during the beginning of their current year of school. Since the previous third years had graduated, Minseok, Luhan, Yifan, Junmyun and Yixing had taken the roles of the oldest ones in their class. Jongdae had been pretty pumped about not being among the youngest anymore, since he, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and Tao had started their second year. Starting a new year also meant the addition of new first years to the group, and this time only two had decided to join. But their teacher proudly presented the two to the class anyway.

Both of them were tall, one of them had a darker skin tone while the other one was pretty pale. They were both surprisingly handsome, but Jongdae’s eyes had immediately darted to the shorter and younger out of the two. There was something about him that was just intriguing, somehow, like he really wanted to get to know more about the boy. Maybe it was the lanky figure, maybe it was the narrow face which was free from any signs of nervousness (or any emotions whatsoever) although his body language spoke differently. Jongdae didn’t really know what it was, but there was _something_.

Jongin and Sehun had both been quite shy and didn’t take up much place in the beginning (which was pretty different from how Jongdae and his fellow second years had been back in their first year), but they soon opened up and became an important part of their group. Now, Jongdae couldn’t imagine drama class without them.

  
  


He sighed and half-assedly tried to tear his eyes away from the younger boy’s back, not succeeding very well. Jongdae had figured out that the more he got to know Sehun, the more attached he grew to him. It wasn’t until maybe two thirds of their last semester had gone by that he’d realised he was very fond of the other boy. It was those weird kinds of feelings where he’d want to drag the other over to his house, nerd over old film classics together and become the bestest of friends. However, sometimes he just wanted to do the same thing but while holding hands and maybe, _possibly_ , make out a little. Sehun had an attractive face and a cute mouth so Jongdae wouldn’t really mind. Also, it would be a nice bonus if he’d get to touch those shoulders and that neck and the arms and the butt. Yeah, definitely the butt, too.

  
  


"Oh, just tell us already!" Baekhyun shouted from right next to Jongdae, effectively interrupting his thoughts and bringing him back to reality. He thanked heavens for the fact that Miss Hwang was such a tolerant teacher, because she just smiled in reply to the boy.

“Okay, so, what am I doing now?” She imitated biting into something and suddenly her face was struck with panic. Then she put her hands to her throat in shock and suddenly fell down to the floor, faking death. After that she stood up and looked expectantly at the class.

“Well… uh, you ate something…” Chanyeol uselessly commented.

“Oh! Snow White!” Minseok shouted out in a sudden realisation and the statement was followed by several “oooh”s throughout the classroom.

“That’s right!” Miss Hwang said, smiling widely. “I had a class that performed the original fairy tale version of Snow White a couple of years ago, and it turned out great, so it’s going to be nice to do it again. This time I’ve changed things up a bit though, because I’m basing this play on the Disney movie version! You’ve all seen it, right?”

Luckily, everyone seemed to have seen it at least once in their lives, and even if it was a long time ago, everyone still knew how the story went.

“Good! So”, the teacher started to look for something in her bag, and after a moment she took out a thick folder, “I’ve prepared the script already, but as always you’re very welcome to change any of your lines to something you feel fits better, or just tell me if you have any other inputs.”

She started handing out the scripts to all of the students, and when Jongdae got his he took a quick look at the first page, the character list. There seemed to be just enough characters for the twelve of them, which was something Miss Hwang was also fast to point out.

“The characters in the play are of course Snow White, the evil queen, the mirror, the seven dwarfs, the huntsman and the prince. That’s exactly twelve characters, so it fits you perfectly”, she said. “Have you all already decided which character you want to portray?”

Jongdae hadn’t, but he realised it didn’t matter that much to him. He could be the huntsman, he could be one of the dwarfs, as long as he wasn’t Snow White it was going to be okay with him, really. And he knew the risk of him playing Snow White was very small, especially when their teacher asked who was willing to play her and everyone immediately directed their eyes to Luhan.

“Wh-what?! Are you suggesting what I think you are? I can’t play Snow White, I’m a man!” Luhan sputtered. Baekhyun rolled his eyes at him.

“If you haven’t noticed, all of us are men, and someone’s gotta play her.”

“And Snow White is supposed to be a beautiful, delicate person and you’re the only one here who’s pretty and feminine looking enough to play her”, Junmyun said matter-of-factly, earning himself a couple of nods in agreement from some of the people in the room. Luhan was quick to retort, however.

“But, I-I’m a lot manlier than what she’s supposed to be! It’ll look really weird!” He paused and nervously looked around the room. “You, Baekhyun, you’re just as feminine looking as I am, if not more! Sehun and Junmyun have paler skin than I have! Minseok is really pretty- I mean…” he trailed off, realising he had pretty much lost when all he got in reply to his rambling was judging looks from the others.

“See this as a compliment! We all think you are a good enough actor to play a character that’s completely different from yourself”, Yixing said, trying to cheer his friend up. It was partly true actually, Luhan was definitely one of the best actors among them. Not that Jongdae would admit that to him, though.

“Yes, a good actor should be able to portray a large range of different characters! This is your chance to prove yourself”, Miss Hwang suddenly said, marking an end to the discussion. Luckily, Luhan then looked like he was slowly accepting his fate.

“Shall we move on to… maybe the dwarfs? The first one is Doc, he is the seemingly wise leader of the dwarfs, I’m sure you remember him”, she asked and one student immediately raised his hand.

“I volunteer”, Junmyun said, surprising no one.

“Great! Then we have Grumpy, is there anyone who wants to play him?”

The room was silent for a couple of seconds until Chanyeol spoke up.

“Kyungsoo will”, he said, and was met with an expression of surprise from the mentioned boy.

“Yeah, c’mon Kyungsoo, it will be great”, Jongdae said, siding with Chanyeol on this one. He could definitely see Kyungsoo as the irritable dwarf, especially since the boy always had on a serious expression while acting in front of others.

“Well, …okay, I guess it’s fine with me”, Kyungsoo finally replied, and soon all the dwarfs’ roles had been assigned, and there were only four characters left. Jongdae had been assigned to play Sneezy after accidentally having sneezed at an unfortunate moment, but he was okay with it. He was more interested in finding out who, out of the four people left, would play the evil queen.

“Tao will do it, right?” Baekhyun uttered loudly and said boy looked at him with a terrified expression.

“…Why me?” Tao said after a moment of silence.

“Duh, because you’re the best at playing evil characters”, Sehun answered as if it was obvious, which it kinda was. Tao was a surprisingly good actor, and his speciality was, just as Sehun had said, the evil characters. They had found out about that during the second semester of their first year, when they had done a play about an urban crime story. Tao had played the bad guy, the mafia boss, and had done it so well that the not very easily scared Jongdae had several nightmares about a suit-clad Tao who threatened to cut his little finger off with a pocket knife. Since then, Tao had been assigned to play the bad guys in every play they performed.

“Besides, the queen is also supposed to be extremely pretty, just not in an innocent and girly way like Snow White, so this role really fits you!” Baekhyun said with a wide smile, knowing that praising Tao would take him far in this situation. It seemed like his attempt was successful when Tao’s eyes lit up a little at the words.

“O-okay then. I will play the evil queen”, he said with a small smirk on his lips.

After that, Minseok quickly snatched the role of the magic mirror, and only Yifan and Sehun were left.

“I’ll play the huntsman, if that’s okay”, Yifan said, and their teacher nodded. She asked Sehun if it was okay with him to play the prince since he was the only character left, and Sehun nodded and told her that sure, it was fine. Jongdae totally thought so too, the boy was tall and pretty and very prince-like (at least when it came to his looks), so the role was perfect for him. At least, that’s what he thought until Luhan spoke after having stayed silent for a long time.

“Wait, does that mean… _he’s gonna kiss me?!_ ”

And then the whole classroom was filled with a symphony of different noises. There were sounds of laughter, wolf whistles, shouting and a couple “eww”s. Thankfully, the noises kept everyone else from hearing Jongdae’s breath hitch in his throat.

This… wasn’t a good situation at all. No way.

After steadying his breathing a little Jongdae finally managed to look up, catching Sehun’s reaction. To Jongdae’s delight, the younger did seem a bit shaken by the situation. But of course, that didn’t mean it was a negative reaction. Maybe Sehun was just feeling nervous because this was all he ever dreamed of, or something? Jongdae tried to ignore that thought as hard as he could.

“Well, the kiss is a very important part of the story, so yes”, their teacher said.

“Uh, but-, um…” Sehun attempted to tell the teacher something, but failed miserably. Jongdae decided to help him.

“Hey, you can’t force him to play the prince, then”, he stated loudly.

“He said he was okay with it, though. Right?” Miss Hwang replied, looking at Sehun who fidgeted nervously.

“Yeah, I did, but, uh…” Sehun answered dumbly, and Jongdae took that as a sign to continue speaking.

“But why does he have to play the prince?” he said, probably sounding very irritated, but he didn’t care. “Can’t someone else do it instead, like… Chanyeol, for example? What’s he doing playing a dwarf anyway, he’s one of the tallest people here! Don’t you realise how stupid it’ll look?” Jongdae pointed an accusatory finger at his tall classmate who’d been assigned to play Dopey. Chanyeol flinched a little, not used to the usually happy and nice Jongdae lashing out on him.

“I-, um”, he started but was interrupted by Baekhyun.

“But Jongdae, we need someone who’s actually somewhat good-looking to play the prince, so Chanyeol can’t possibly play him!” The comment made a couple of the others laugh and Chanyeol made an offended expression, Baekhyun just sticking out his tongue at him in response.

“Besides, I guess we’re all going to walk on our knees anyway, I mean, Jongin is pretty tall too”, Yixing contributed to the discussion.

“Yeah but… wouldn’t our way of walking look awkward if we all did that?” Junmyun wondered.

“Maybe we should crouch down instead”, Jongin said, and was immediately answered by Baekhyun.

“Then we’ll all look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame or something, dude.”

Jongdae felt his irritation grow.

“Whatever, but is there _anyone_ else that could play the prince instead? Is anyone even listening to me?” he almost shouted out, trying to be heard over the others.

“Can everybody keep quiet, please? We’ll talk about the technical stuff later, alright? And, it’s decided, Sehun will play the prince and I will have no more objections, at least not from people who are not him”, Miss Hwang said and looked at Jongdae sternly while she said the last part. Jongdae found it hard to pay attention to that though when the boy in the seat in front of him turned around and gave him a small smile of appreciation and a shrug of the shoulders.

  
  


They spent the rest of the lesson reading through the script together until Miss Hwang clasped her hands, telling her students that class was over. Jongdae was just about to leave when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Um, Jongdae hyung”, sounded a voice that Jongdae probably could recognise from 50 miles away, and he turned around at (possibly) the speed of light. Sehun looked down at him with the same smile he’d given him earlier.

“I just wanted to say that I appreciate you sticking up for me before”, he said, hand still on Jongdae’s shoulder, making the shorter’s legs feel somewhat wobbly.

“But, yeah… It’s gonna be alright, really, I can deal”, the younger then said, shrugging again. “Anyway, thanks I guess. Didn’t know you cared so much.”

“Of course, I don’t think anyone should be forced to do something they’re uncomfortable with”, Jongdae lied nervously. Seriously, he was Kim Jongdae, why was he being nervous all of a sudden?

“You’re pretty nice, hyung”, Sehun smiled a bit wider and Jongdae found himself smiling just as wide.

“Well, I’ll see you next week, then”, the younger said and started to walk away, the opposite direction from the one Jongdae had been heading to.

“See ya!” Jongdae managed to reply before almost sprinting away in his suddenly happy mood. Turns out this situation wasn’t _completely_ to his disadvantage after all.

 


	2. The idea

Miss Hwang, their drama teacher, was definitely one of those teachers who lived and breathed the subjects they were teaching. She had apparently practised acting ever since she was little, and she’d had a successful career even though she was still fairly young.

For example, she had spent a couple of years in America where she had helped training some upcoming drama actors, before she went back to Korea to pursue teaching. Also, her boyfriend was apparently an actor who’d played the leading role in a whole bunch of famous musicals. Some of the musical fans in their group (Baekhyun, for example) had almost squealed in delight when they’d heard who it was (but Jongdae had never heard of the guy since he was more interested in films anyway). So you could say Miss Hwang was very passionate about her subject, which was also made obvious during their lessons.

  


"Okay, second scene! Luhan, are you ready? Snow White is out getting water from the well, and she is humming a melody to herself. If this was in front of an audience the spotlight would be on her and we would have audio of birds chirping in the background, alright?"

It was the next week and they had started practising their play without props and with the script in their hands. Tao had just left the stage after doing a very convincing portrayal of the furious queen, and now it was time for Luhan and Sehun to shine.

“Do I seriously have to be humming on a song?” Luhan asked, and their teacher immediately replied that yes, he had to, “since it brings out Snow White’s innocence even more”. Luhan then started humming while pretending to fill a bucket with water from a well.

“Alright, enter the stage, Sehun!” the teacher said and Sehun slowly made his way to the other end of the stage, just standing there looking at Luhan until the latter left with the imaginary bucket of water.

“This is where the spotlight would shift to Sehun if we were performing it for real”, Miss Hwang then said. “Okay then, Sehun, you know what to do!”

The script said that _”the prince looks at Snow White leaving with an expression of curiosity mixed with longing”_ , and the prince was supposed to say his only line from that scene.

“Wow… what a beautiful girl”, Sehun said stiffly with no feeling in particular visible on his face. He then covered said face with his hands in embarrassment, and laughter was heard throughout the room. Jongdae couldn’t help but join in on the laughter, it was well known that Sehun wasn’t the best actor out of all of them, especially during the first rounds of practise. Jongdae loved watching him act though, mostly for the fact that he was just being so _adorable_.

  


Once again the teacher announced that it was time for the next scene, where Tao ordered the huntsman, aka Yifan, to take Snow White into the woods and end her life. Tao had been very surprised when he’d found out that he was supposed to tell the huntsman to bring him Snow White’s heart as proof that she was dead, not expecting the fairy tale to have such a dark twist.

“Is this seriously from the Disney movie?” he asked incredulously.

“It’s an old movie and they didn’t have the same concept of ratings as we have now”, Jongdae explained to him, “Besides, it’s not so bad. He doesn’t even do it and the heart isn’t pictured anyway. They pretty much only mention it.”

Tao still seemed a bit unsettled, but carried on nonetheless, and it was soon time for the next scene. The scene showed how the huntsman takes Snow White to the woods, fails to kill her and lets her flee instead. It basically consisted of Luhan running around to dramatic music in the dark woods, trying to look as terrified as Snow White was supposed to feel. Except, there was no dramatic music in the background and there was also a significant lack of dark woods on the stage, so it just turned out looking kinda hilarious instead, with Luhan running around in circles awkwardly. Jongdae had to keep himself from laughing, because he knew Luhan wouldn’t be too happy if he did.

Looking over to where Sehun currently sat, the younger boy didn’t laugh at the scene either since he was too busy listening to Tao, who was seated next to him. From what Jongdae could hear, Tao was talking about what a brilliant idea it would be to make the scene more exciting by adding a fight sequence between Snow White and the huntsman. Sehun simply nodded, smiling amusedly at his friend’s suggestion.

  


After a long, almost completely improvised scene of Snow White exploring the house she’d found in the woods, it was finally time for Jongdae to get up on the stage, together with the six others who also played the dwarfs. It wasn’t that much acting on his part, really, he just had a few lines and most of them simply consisted of him trying to say something but ending up sneezing instead. But he did a good job acting, if he was to be honest. Although the only thing their teacher said to him was:

“I guess you’ll need to practise your fake sneezing to make it more believable”, which hopefully meant that the rest of his acting was good enough for the teacher to only point out a small thing like that. Right?

  


The next scene was one of the most amusing parts of the whole play, Jongdae thought. It was the scene where the queen finds out that Snow White is still alive after asking the mirror, and she unleashes her fury on the huntsman. Even though it was only their first time practising, Tao really went all out and screamed and shouted at poor Yifan, who just stood there, taken aback by the younger’s fit of rage. Tao even shouted some obscenity in Chinese that made Yifan’s face pale a little and Luhan giggle.

Jongdae knew that the reasons behind Tao’s extreme way of acting out this scene were his will to show off his skills as an actor, but mostly because he could use it as an excuse to get to express his feelings about _certain people_ properly. It was well known that Tao’d had a big, embarrassing crush on Yifan during all of his first year, and he’d done everything to impress the other boy, including following him around and doing anything that the other wanted. Basically he’d totally been head over heels for the other, so imagine how Tao’s heart shattered to pieces when he found out that Yifan was as straight as uncooked spaghetti.

Tao seemed to have gotten over him now though, even if he still was a bit mad that he’d wasted all his time and efforts on a boy that would never like him back anyway. Which was evident now that he was still shouting at the other, even though the queen had already gotten her message across very clearly at this point. Their teacher seemed to approve of his acting, though.

“Great, Zitao! It’s very professional of you to imagine yourself in the queen’s shoes and feeling the same rage that she does in this scene. Excellent portrayal!”

Tao kind of just shrugged and smiled sheepishly in reply. And with that, the play progressed and soon enough it was time for the last scene. The scene where the prince awakens Snow White from her slumber. The scene where he kisses Snow White. _That scene_.

Jongdae gulped. He wasn’t even part of the whole kissing business, why did he care so much? Maybe it was because he wanted to be a part of it. Maybe he wanted to be on the receiving end of Sehun’s, or the prince’s, kiss. However, he absolutely did not want to play Snow White and he couldn’t do anything about the roles anyway. They had already been decided and their teacher would probably flash him a smile of death and tell him to leave the room if he asked about it one more time. So, what could he do?

Jongdae thought that possibly, their teacher could accept a change in the script. She would always tell them how she loves when they add their own input on the script and change it to suit their liking more, so why not?

  


Almost everyone were on stage now. Luhan was lying in the middle playing dead, and all the dwarfs were assembled around him. Sehun slowly entered the stage, and walked up to Luhan in an even slower manner, trying to drag out the time as much as possible (at least, that’s what Jongdae hoped he did). If the boy was nervous or not was hard to tell on his poker face, but his voice gave it away when he spoke up.

“Do… do I really have to, uh, kiss him on the practise rounds?”

“Well, it is practise, so I would prefer if you did. It’d be good if the actual performance at the end of this semester won’t be the first time you two kiss, anyway. You need to create some chemistry and make the kiss seem believable.”

Jongdae then raised his hand, trying to put an indifferent look on his face.

“Y’know… Why does Snow White have to be saved by a prince, anyway? Isn’t that pretty old-fashioned and enforces stereotypical gender roles?”

“I actually agree, can’t Snow White save herself?” Luhan piped up, not looking very dead anymore. He seemed like he was about to add something but he was quickly interrupted by Tao, who was speaking in an excited voice.

“Yeah! I’ve had this great idea for a while, listen up: Instead of fainting from the apple, Snow White senses the queen’s bad intentions and _challenges him_ , I mean her, _to a battle to the death_ using only their bare hands! It would bring more excitement to the play if we add an action sequence, don’t you think?”

Jongdae found the idea pretty stupid, but to be honest he’d still prefer it over the actual kiss scene. Some of the others didn’t share his opinion, though.

“Yeah but Tao, we really don’t want Luhan hyung to die”, Baekhyun said. Luhan instantly retorted, a bit red in the face.

“Hey, I can defend myself!”

About two or three people in the room rolled their eyes at that, but before anyone could say anything their teacher interrupted.

“Okay everybody, quiet down. Yes, I know that the scene contributes to the clichéd idea that girls need a man to save them, but… It’s just so _romantic_!” Jongdae was almost certain that the teacher’s eyes sparkled at that moment. “And it is a perfect ending to the play! No one in the audience will have their feelings unaffected by this scene, I’m sure of it!”

Miss Hwang took a break to breathe for a second and then continued.

“Sehun, Luhan, I’ll let you off the hook this time, but I want you to have practised the kiss scene at least a couple of times before we actually perform it, okay?”

The two nodded as a reply and Jongdae cringed. Things were really not going his way. Even though they didn’t have to kiss today, they still had to do it later. And he certainly didn’t want to think about that.

What if Luhan was an excellent kisser and Sehun, if he didn’t already like him, would fall for him after getting to experience his lips? What if the two would start hanging out after school to “practise their lines” but instead end up only practising that very scene, _very thoroughly_?

Jongdae tried to subtly shake his head, as if that would help him to get rid of those terrifying thoughts.

He couldn’t agree with his teacher, there was nothing romantic about Luhan and Sehun kissing, not at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just wanted to clarify that i absolutely don't hate hunhan (it's only jongdae who does that, lol). actually, i adore the pair and that's why i made the two of them the ones to kiss in the play u v u  
> hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	3. The realisation

The next week Jongdae made an important discovery.

They had practise, again, and all the people playing the dwarfs sat in front of the stage, watching the scene where the queen tricks Snow White into eating the poisonous apple. Jongdae had seated himself next to Yixing, who had been assigned to play Bashful, and the two were chatting quietly about the play.

Jongdae liked talking to Yixing, the guy was nice and easy to talk to, even if he sometimes seemed a bit lost in his own thoughts, as if he didn’t pay attention to some of the things going on around him. Therefore Jongdae was a little surprised when the other asked him the following question:

“You seemed a bit upset over the kiss scene, why?”

“Uh, well… I just think it’s unfair to force them to do that, I mean, Sehun seemed pretty uncomfortable with it. I don’t really understand the point of having them actually kiss, there are probably tons of ways to fake it and still make the play _romantic_ , or whatever”, Jongdae said with a sigh, knowing that he couldn’t do anything to change it at this point. However, he was completely unprepared for what Yixing said next.

“Hm… Did you know that in the original fairy tale, the prince doesn’t kiss Snow White? Instead, the piece of apple that was stuck in her throat flies out because of a bump in the road on the way to the prince’s castle. It’s only in the Disney-”

“ _What?!?_ ” Jongdae couldn’t believe it.

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?!” he pretty much shouted out, and soon all eyes in the room were on him, even Luhan looked up from the ground he was lying on after having bit into the imaginary apple.

“Is that something you want to share with the rest of the class, or should we continue…?” the teacher asked.

“I’m sorry, but this is really important, uh, hyung, can you tell them?” he directed his eyes to Yixing, who just looked back at Jongdae with a gentle smile on his face. Then he told the others the same thing he had said to Jongdae, which sparked a lot of different reactions throughout the classroom.

“Wait, so, there was just a piece of apple stuck in her throat the entire time?” Junmyun said at the same time Luhan shouted out an “Oh my god!!” and Chanyeol laughed loudly at the discovery.

“Yeah! Can’t we stay true to the original story and do it that way instead?” Jongdae asked the teacher.

“I- I agree! Did you seriously not know about that version?” Luhan contributed, and Miss Hwang seemed mildly irritated at that.

“Of course I know about the original story! I had, after all, a class a couple of years ago who performed the exact same version. That’s why I’m choosing a different version for you. A better version, in my opinion, since it’s a lot more romantic!”

“Guys, did you also know that in the end of the original version, the queen is forced to dance in a pair of burning shoes until she dies? It’s supposed to be her punishment”, Yixing then added in a casual voice, as if he was wasn’t talking about something that morbid. Various exclaims of shock were heard, and the teacher just gestured to Yixing as to further prove her point that the Disney version was a better alternative.

“If we’re voting, I’m choosing the Disney version!” Tao shuddered, and Chanyeol started to laugh again. He pointed to Luhan and then to Sehun.

“Y-you two really have to kiss!” he said while laughing maliciously.

“Shut up, Dopey”, Luhan simply replied to that.

  


When class was over Jongdae quickly gathered his things and left, wanting to come home as soon as possible. He was feeling a little bit giddy because Sehun had flashed him a large (cute) smile after he’d said something ~~stupid~~ funny at the end of the lesson. It made his stomach feel warm. It also made him think.

Did Jongdae like Sehun? Well, he had pretty much established that he would very much like to be on the receiving end of Sehun’s kiss(es), and that was a major sign of having a crush. And he had after all done everything he could to prevent the kiss between Sehun and Luhan from happening, just because he didn’t like the thought of anyone other than him getting to kiss the younger. Not like he had actually done that, although he’d had a bunch of dreams where he kissed Sehun, among… other things.

Jongdae tried to clear his head of those thoughts and instead focus on the answer to his inner question. Said answer was yep, he liked the other boy. More than liked. Sehun was attractive, yet dorky and cute at the same time. And ridiculously hot. It was embarrassing how much Jongdae tried not to stare at the younger, and even more embarrassing how much he failed at doing that. One time he had almost-

“Jongdae-yah!”

Jongdae’s whole thought process was interrupted by a loud voice calling his name, and a second later he felt the presence of someone else’s arm around his shoulder.

“Jongdae-yah”, the voice said again, a little bit quieter this time, “where are you going? Are you busy this afternoon?”

Jongdae forced himself to turn around and face the owner of the voice, and was met with Luhan’s baby chicken coloured hair. It was actually supposed to have been a more natural-looking blonde colour, but since it was Luhan’s first time dyeing his hair by himself that time a couple of months ago, it instead turned out bright yellow. Luhan didn’t seem too bothered by it though, probably seeing it as a chance to express his personal style even when he was in school and wore a uniform. Jongdae wondered if he himself would look good in dyed hair. Not blonde obviously, but maybe a dark brown colour?

He then shook his head, both to get rid of all the thoughts that occupied his brain and to answer Luhan’s question. No, he wasn’t exactly busy. Of course he had homework and there were probably tons of things that wouldn’t hurt if he studied a little bit more thoroughly, but no, he wasn’t too busy.

“Is that a no? You’re free, then?” Jongdae nodded as an answer, and Luhan smiled widely.

“Okay, could you come over to my place, in that case? I need someone to practise my lines on and you are a nice friend and seem to be taking this play seriously, so yeah”, Luhan said and Jongdae was just about to refuse when he felt himself being dragged away by Luhan’s steady arm around his shoulders. Well. He probably couldn’t have said no anyway. Being rude wouldn’t take him anywhere in life and besides, Luhan was a pretty cool person to hang out with.

The two of them had bonded in Jongdae’s first year when they found out that they shared a passion for old film classics, but also, something completely unrelated, Chinese ballads. Luhan had been totally excited when he’d found out that Jongdae took classes in Chinese, and had immediately volunteered to help him with any difficulties he had in those classes (and also teach him some more or less useful phrases). Therefore Jongdae had actually visited Luhan’s place more than once before, so he didn’t feel lost at all when they after a while entered the house of the older.

 

Jongdae soon found himself sitting on Luhan’s bed, surrounded by walls covered with pictures of idol groups, Chinese singers, football players and movie posters. The owner of the room sat himself down next to Jongdae, taking out the script from his bag.

“Did you bring your script or do we have to share mine?” Luhan asked, looking at Jongdae expectantly.

“I have mine with me, but, uhm, why did you ask me of all people to practise with you? I mean, I have like four lines and it’s mostly just me sneezing. Couldn’t you have asked someone like…Tao, for example?” Jongdae had to ask about this, because he was genuinely curious. Luhan just looked at him in response, wearing a smile that looked like it said “are you dumb?”.

“Well, firstly, Miss Hwang told you that you needed to practice your sneezing”, he elbowed Jongdae playfully in the side, “but also because you’re a nice friend.” Luhan then looked at Jongdae conspiratorially, making the latter somewhat confused.

“I think it’s really sweet of you, what you’ve done. I mean, the whole thing about trying to remove the kiss scene from the play, and all that. I appreciate that.”

Wait. Did Luhan think Jongdae did all that for him? Oh wow. Jongdae had no idea how to respond to that. He couldn’t tell him the truth, because it would make him seem selfish and also make his crush on Sehun painfully obvious, but at the same time he didn’t want to lie Luhan in the face. So instead Jongdae just shrugged a little in reply, waiting for Luhan to continue.

“So, I think it’s nice of you to try to save me, but it’s okay. I’ve kinda gotten used to the fact that I’m gonna get kissed by Sehun now. Besides, he is quite handsome, don’t you agree?”

“Well, I guess…?” Jongdae replied, trying not to make his tone falter. As if it wasn’t enough with Luhan thinking Jongdae had tried to save _him_ of all people, he now also thought that Sehun was attractive. Great. Hopefully his opinion on the youngest would stay there, and not turn into an actual crush.

“He is! I mean he’s pretty tall, and he has this face that’s both attractive and cute at the same time, if you get me?”

Yes, Jongdae would have said if he was brave enough. He got what Luhan meant. He definitely did. It’s just that he didn’t feel like telling him about it. So he shrugged for a second time, hopefully looking disinterested.

“Okay, enough with my babbling. Let’s start practising!” Luhan laughed briefly and put a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder, and then gestured at the script.

  


They spent the rest of their time together practising, or, well, Luhan practised. Jongdae did say his lines every now and then, but since Luhan had maybe fifteen times the amount of lines Jongdae had he naturally practised them a lot more. By the end of their session Jongdae could swear he’d memorised all of Luhan’s lines as well.

But what he remembered the clearest, he realised while on his way home, was Luhan saying that he didn’t mind getting kissed by Sehun and then proceeding to tell Jongdae about how good-looking the boy was. As he reached his house, Jongdae still had a large lump of worry residing in his stomach.

 


	4. The plan - success and failure

They had started to practise the play for real now. That meant no script reading, and also that they had to wear costumes. Luhan had originally complained when he was presented with the dress he was supposed to wear, especially since Tao, who played the queen, didn’t have to wear one. Tao’s outfit was more a dress and trousers combo with boots and a vampire-like cape. It was weird-looking, sure, but it wasn’t as feminine as Luhan’s dress. However, after a short time, Luhan had told Jongdae that while he did look kinda dumb, it “feels a lot more _free_ , if you know what I mean”. Jongdae did not need to hear that.

His own outfit was pretty much just like all the other dwarfs’ (a simple shirt and trousers, combined with a long coat and a hat), except his came with a small handkerchief to blow his nose in. Sleepy, who was played by Jongin, had a pillow with him at all times and whenever it wasn’t his turn to be on stage Jongin lay down on it to get into the role of his character. Or because he was tired and it was nice to be able to relax with a fluffy pillow during class. Jongdae thought it was the latter.

Sehun, on the other hand, had an actually nice outfit. Both his shirt and trousers looked fancily expensive, and he also wore a crown, an old-fashioned (also fancy-looking) coat, a cravat, and boots that complimented his long legs. Those legs looked even better without anything covering them, Jongdae decided when they dressed into their costumes.

Most of them had chosen to change clothes in the large props storage, Sehun and Jongdae being a part of them. While Jongdae had hurriedly dressed up behind a clothes rack, not wanting anyone to see him in a state of undress, Sehun had been completely unashamed and changed clothes out in the open among some of the other more unafraid students. Jongdae had almost choked on his breath when he saw the other’s slender, hairless legs (either he hadn’t reached puberty yet - which was kind of unrealistic considering his age, height, and voice - or he actually _shaved_ them) and had to try to collect himself.

Unluckily, Sehun spotted him while he was creepily staring at the younger, and gestured him to come closer with a tiny smile. When Jongdae reached the other boy, breath still threateningly close to hitching, Sehun asked him to hold his coat for him while he changed shirts. He then proceeded, to Jongdae’s both dismay and delight, to turn around and take off his t-shirt _right in front of Jongdae_ , leaving him to stare at the slim back in front of him while his face rapidly heated up.

In mere seconds Sehun had dressed himself in the other shirt, and Jongdae unfortunately had to tear his eyes away from the no longer exposed skin. Sehun then thanked him while wearing his usual stoic expression, and Jongdae returned the coat to the other boy. After that he quickly made his way out of the props storage, mouth feeling ridiculously dry and chest throbbing.

  


The fact that they had started to practise the play for real also meant some less exciting changes. Such as Sehun and Luhan having to practise the kiss scene. Also _for real_. Jongdae found that his heart was beating faster and faster the closer they came to that particular scene. He couldn’t stand the thought of the two of them kissing, not at all, especially now when Luhan had told him he didn’t mind kissing Sehun. That just made it, if possible, worse.

When they after what felt like hours of anxiety reached the scene where the dwarfs were gathered around Snow White’s unconscious body, watching the prince enter the stage, Jongdae felt like his heart was going to burst. It was evident that both Luhan and Sehun were nervous, but Jongdae was sure that nobody was as nervous as he was. Observing Sehun making his way up to where Luhan was lying, he felt like he was going to be sick. Maybe he would faint just like Snow White. Having Sehun wake him up using the same method as the prince did with Snow White wouldn’t be so bad.

Jongdae involuntarily giggled at the thought and he had to compose himself, hoping no one had noticed. They probably hadn’t, because all of the gazes in the classroom were directed at Sehun, who was closing in on Luhan. The room was completely quiet, but the collective thought of “Are they really going to do it?” was in the air and it was almost making the atmosphere tense.

Sehun now stood right in front of Luhan and was slowly bending down, the distance between the two boys’ faces becoming smaller and smaller. A sudden thought popped up in Jongdae’s head, and he realised he had to act fast.

Nobody noticed him quickly removing himself from the stage, everyone were focused on the two in the centre of it. Upon reaching his destination, the fuse box, Jongdae looked over his shoulder to see Luhan’s and Sehun’s faces only a centimetre or so apart. A mere second after that everything went black.

Several shouts were heard as Jongdae directed his steps to the stage again, carefully feeling with his hands in front of him as to not bump into something, or worse, someone. He would be done for if somebody discovered that he was the reason why the electricity turned itself off.

Jongdae knew he was close to the stage when the voices of his classmates became louder and louder. About half of them were shrieking in panic over the sudden lack of light and the other half were shouting at the first half to calm down and be quiet.

“Relax, everyone, it’s only the power that went off”, Miss Hwang said loudly and succeeded in calming her students down for a second. Then suddenly there was a loud “thump!” and a yell from what sounded like Luhan, who probably fell down from the table that represented Snow White’s death bed. Luhan’s yell made the others erupt into a loud mess of noises again, and Jongdae could arrive at the stage smoothly without anyone noticing.

  


After Minseok and Yifan had used the lights from their cell phones to guide them to the fuse box, the electricity was working again. However, it had taken some time, and when everything was finally back to normal class was over. Jongdae hurried home, feeling both worried about the risk of someone spotting him, and satisfied with the fact that his plan had worked.

Luhan and Sehun hadn’t kissed that lesson, either.

  


Feeling confident because his previous idea worked, Jongdae kept on trying new ways to stop the kiss sequence from happening. He was well aware that it was risky, if someone found out about his schemes he feared he might get kicked out from the play, but somehow the risk was worth it. The longer he could postpone his two classmates’ kiss, the better. Preferably, it wouldn’t happen at all, but that was _too_ unrealistic, considering his past tries to remove it from the play. Still, he could dream...

The only actual positive thing about the kiss scene was the fact that his classmates had been so chill with it. Not one of them had seemed troubled over the fact that two boys were kissing (even though one of them was portraying a girl), and that was a huge relief for Jongdae, who’d spent all his years in middle school trying to hide the fact that he didn’t only like girls. Actually, he was sure he wasn’t the only one in the group who did so, with Tao’s previous crush on Yifan and Luhan’s comments about Sehun’s attractiveness (although the latter example wasn’t exactly something Jongdae’d wished for happening).

Anyway, the first thing Jongdae tried out the lesson after the Electricity Incident was to call Luhan during the time Sehun was just about to close the distance between their lips. The result had been hilarious.

Everyone in the room had been silent, again, and Jongdae quickly took out his phone and dialled Luhan’s number. As Sehun moved his face closer and closer, Luhan’s pocket started vibrating and a TVXQ song _blasted_ through the silence of the room, making all its occupants jump (except Jongdae). The person reacting the strongest was obviously Luhan himself, who knocked his head into Sehun’s and shouted out in pain, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his smartphone. Ignoring the teacher’s glare (“You’re supposed to have your phone on silent mode during class!”) he checked the caller id and and made a small sound of frustration, to Jongdae’s delight. Jongdae had of course hidden his number before calling Luhan in order to stay sneaky. Hopefully Luhan, or anyone else for that matter, didn’t suspect him.

  


Another time, Jongdae prepared his plan in advance, having stopped by a shop on his way home from school the previous evening to buy a toy cockroach. When the kiss scene was about to take place, Jongdae took Chanyeol aside and asked him “hey, wanna do something fun?”. If there was something Jongdae had learnt about Chanyeol after being the other’s classmate for such a long time, it was that the tall boy could never refuse taking part in his pranks. And so he made Chanyeol his accomplice for the afternoon.

He ordered the taller to sneak up behind Tao, fake cockroach in hand, and softly place it on the other’s shoulder. Tao had instinctively turned around at the touch, and being the resident bug hater, he screamed his lungs out when he spotted the insect replica. The screaming made the people sitting around him react as well, rising to their feet at the same time Tao did, expecting there to be some sort of dangerous situation. Very similar to the domino effect, the rest of the occupants of the room also flinched at the ruckus, bringing a stop to the kissing for a third time.

Of course, it felt silly when they discovered the source of the chaos to be a plastic cockroach. Chanyeol had laughed so hard he got hiccups, and Baekhyun probably imitated Tao’s scream at least seven times throughout the rest of their lesson.

Because he hadn’t seen that it was Chanyeol who’d placed the bug on his shoulder, Tao didn’t have anyone to blame for the incident, and was therefore in a very bad mood when class was over. He shocked everyone when he yelled at Baekhyun in irritation and stormed off, Baekhyun rushing after him shouting what sounded like half-assed apologies (but Jongdae didn’t really know). Chanyeol hit Jongdae on the back in what was probably supposed to be a friendly gesture, congratulated him on coming up with such a great prank, and asked if they could do something like that again soon. Jongdae simply smiled and shrugged in reply.

  


Of course, the inevitable had to happen some day. Jongdae knew he couldn’t avoid the kiss scene forever, his teacher’s patience was wearing thin and he had also run out of ideas on how to stop it. So when his teacher announced the next lesson that this time they _were_ kissing, even if there were disturbances, Jongdae gave up. There was no way he was gonna completely stop it from happening.

Knowing this, Jongdae was in a bad mood throughout the whole lesson. He wasn’t exactly angry, he was more feeling kind of uneasy and irritable. This was apparently visible on the outside too, because just before practise started Baekhyun walked up to him, asking him what’s wrong. Jongdae didn’t really know what to answer (since when was Baekhyun of all people so caring?) so he just lied that he was catching the flu, or something similar. Baekhyun didn’t seem to believe him, though.

“Are you sure? You’ve been like this for the past bunch of lessons. Actually, ever since we started practising in costumes. Is your costume itchy, or something? Or is it…” Jongdae could practically hear the wheels turning in his classmate’s head. Why was Baekhyun suddenly noticing stuff?

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Really…” Baekhyun moved closer to Jongdae, whispering conspiratorially. “Because, now that I think about it, you’ve been very keen on stopping that kiss from happening.” He grinned widely, and Jongdae was just about to innocently say “what kiss?” but stopped himself, realising how stupid that would sound. Instead he just frowned, which Baekhyun took as an invitation to continue speaking.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you instruct Chanyeol to put that bug on Tao’s shoulder,” he snorted at the memory, “a nice prank, though. But it made me think… if you were the one behind the other stuff, too. Like calling Luhan hyung, for example.”

Jongdae tried to keep calm at the suggestion, rolling his eyes.

“Are you dumb? Luhan hyung has my number saved, he’d seen if it was me who called. And are you seriously implying that I shut off the electricity? How would I even have done that, I was at the stage with you guys during the whole time.”

Baekhyun shrugged.

“Maybe you had an accomplice. Anyway, why do you want to interrupt the kiss scene so badly?”

“I _told_ you, I haven’t been trying to interrupt it!” Jongdae was growing very annoyed at Baekhyun, who he usually was pretty good friends with.

“You know what, you can tell me anything. Anything, Jongdae. Even stuff like, I don’t know, having a crush on egg yolk and egg white over there.” He gestured at Luhan and Sehun, who were getting ready for the first scene. Jongdae put his face in his hands.

“Oh my god, Baekhyun, why are you implying-”

“I think the whole class have noticed, to be honest.”

“Noticed what?” came a voice from above them. Baekhyun grinned even wider at the arrival of Yifan.

“Y'know, the whole thing about Jongdae having a crush”, he said smugly, and Jongdae felt mortified. What had he done to deserve this? Okay, he had tried to sabotage the play a few times, but still. It wasn’t anything too serious.

“He has a crush?” Yifan looked surprised, but was soon smiling something similar to Baekhyun’s smug grin. Said grin had faded a little bit from Baekhyun’s face, since his theory about everyone having noticed was proven wrong by Yifan’s apparent surprise. He carried on talking nonetheless, Jongdae wanting to shove a brick in his mouth more than ever before.

“Yeah, on either Luhan hyung or Sehun. Do you have any idea which one of them?”

“Hm, I actually saw him accompanying Luhan home the other day, but I don’t know-”

“Can the two of you shut up? I don’t see how it’s any of your business, anyway”, Jongdae spoke through gritted teeth.

“Woah, no need to be so aggressive”, Yifan held his hands up, “but okay, I’ll leave you to figure out your little problem by yourself.” He then patted Jongdae on the shoulder and went over to talk with Junmyun, or someone, Jongdae didn’t care. He just wanted the earth to swallow him whole. Never mind that he was currently in a classroom on the third floor.

“Okay, I won’t tell any more people, if that’s what you want”, Baekhyun patted him on the same place Yifan had previously patted him, “but my point is, almost everyone’s probably already noticed. You haven’t been very subtle in your attempts to change the scene. But, keep fighting! I’m sure you’ll woo Luhan hyung someday.”

Jongdae sighed. Well, Yifan probably wouldn’t tell anyone since he wasn’t the gossipy type anyway. And if Baekhyun said he’d be quiet about it, then…

“It’s actually Sehun”, he said. Baekhyun flashed him a victorious grin.

“Yeah, that does make sense. You were the one who tried to get someone else to play the prince in the beginning”, he laughed a little. Jongdae felt embarrassed.

“You think I’m stupid.”

“No, no, not at all. I mean, I’d probably do the same if it was- never mind. Anyway, I totally understand you. And I’m a supportive friend, so just keep fighting!” Jongdae involuntarily smiled a little at that.

“Y'know, just because you’re portraying Happy in the play doesn’t mean you have to be constantly happy in real life, too.”

“What’re you talking about? This is me!” Baekhyun laughed and stood up, flicking Jongdae’s forehead, then running away to bother Tao before it was his turn to enter the stage.

  


The actual kiss scene wasn’t that bad.

Okay, who was he kidding, it was bad. Even worse than he thought. It was a good thing he’d interrupted all those kiss scenes before, because when Luhan and Sehun finally got to kiss each other, they did it _for real_.

Their lips touched to the sound of half of the class shouting, and they didn’t part until five and a half seconds later (Jongdae counted). There was even a gross noise from their mouths moving against each other. Jongdae winced, and Baekhyun patted him on the back once just to move forward and take multiple pictures of them with his smartphone, joining in on the yelling. So much for being a “supportive friend”, huh.

When the two parted, both faces somewhat flushed, everyone whistled and clapped their hands. Everyone except Jongdae. He just couldn’t. A rude gesture, perhaps, but it wasn’t as if anyone noticed, anyway.

After the scene was done and over with (for the day, at least), several of the students gathered around Luhan and Sehun, asking them how they felt. Luhan assured everyone that yes, Sehun was an alright kisser, and no, they hadn’t practised this beforehand. This was their first time kissing. At that, Sehun apparently thought it was a good idea to add that it was _his_ first time kissing altogether, and Jongdae nearly choked on his own saliva.

So, Sehun’s first kiss ever had been with Luhan. In a play. Not that his own first kiss had been very meaningful, but still. Jongdae almost felt like crying.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't hate me for the not-so-desirable events in this chapter (u know what i'm talking about) ;; there's only two chapters left though, and hopefully they will be more satisfactory u v u


	5. The (bad) deal

The day of the performance was getting closer and closer, and everyone really had to try their best during rehearsals. There was no time for half-assed attempts at acting or script readings, they had to “imagine that today is performance day”, as their teacher had said.

They’d definitely progressed, everyone knew their lines by heart at this rate and Jongdae’s fake sneezing had improved (according to both himself and Miss Hwang). In fact, everybody had improved a lot, and they all contributed to the play in their own ways. Their combined efforts were basically what made the play what it was, so at this point nobody could afford to be absent from class.

Therefore, it was close to a disaster when Luhan didn’t show up one lesson.

“Where is Snow White?” Miss Hwang asked when everyone had entered the classroom, well, everyone except one. She looked at Minseok and Yixing, Luhan’s classmates, when she asked the question.

“He hasn’t been in school all day”, Yixing said.

“I texted him and he told me he has a fever, so he can’t come to class today”, Minseok quickly added. The teacher sighed, almost sounding a bit frustrated.

“But he’s the most important character in the play! It’s impossible to practise without him! Is there anyone here that could play Snow White for today’s lesson?” She stared at all her students, who kind of fidgeted nervously and tried to look away.

“Of course not”, she sighed again, “none of you know Snow White’s lines. I should’ve thought of that.”

Miss Hwang seemed so let down. Obviously. Jongdae almost felt sorry for her.

“I- uh…”

“Yes, Jongdae?”

Jongdae stiffened. He wasn’t supposed to have said anything out loud. And now he didn’t know what to answer.

The thing was that he believed he knew all of Snow White’s lines due to his long practise session with Luhan a while ago. However, he didn’t want to go through the humiliation of playing Snow White.

Hmm… but he would be doing the whole class a good deed if he was to substitute Luhan for today’s lesson… And possibly have the opportunity to kiss Sehun. Oh. _Ohh_. Okay, he had decided.

“I… can play Snow White. If no one else wants to. As long as I don’t have to wear the dress”, he said, bracing himself for his classmates laughing at him.

Except they didn’t. Baekhyun did snort once and Yifan flashed him a large, shit-eating grin, but other than that it seemed fine. Sehun even gave him a small smile, making his stomach flip.

“Of course you don’t have to wear the dress, it’s not your costume after all. But do you know all of Snow White’s lines by heart?”

Jongdae nodded at the teacher.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay, great! Turns out practise won’t be as impossible anymore!” Miss Hwang exclaimed before telling everyone to go dress up and get ready.

  
  


Jongdae nearly regretted his decision right away, because it felt utterly embarrassing to try to portray an innocent little girl in front of all his classmates. He did his best, though, skipping up on stage and humming idly on one of his favourite songs as he did so. When he left the stage after a short time he felt Sehun’s eyes following him, and even knowing that Sehun only stared at him because his character was supposed to, Jongdae still felt nervous.

The rest of the scenes turned out really well, actually. Of course, the dwarfs were six today instead of seven, but it didn’t matter much since Sneezy wasn’t that important of a character anyway. It did feel a bit awkward to act like a caretaker to Baekhyun and Kyungsoo and the others (especially since Baekhyun kept giving him these not-so-subtle knowing smirks every now and then) but Jongdae thought he dealt with it in a pretty good way. The only time he started feeling really unsure of himself was when the last scene was about to take place. _The kiss scene._

Jongdae was lying on the table, pretending to be as unconscious as Snow White was supposed to be in that scene. However, he almost felt more alive than ever. His heart was beating so fast he believed it was going to leap out of his chest sooner or later, and he had to try to keep his breathing steady. It was very difficult when his increased heart rate made his chest visibly rise and sink, making him seem like the opposite of being unconscious. And Sehun hadn’t even entered the stage yet. Jongdae was hopeless.

When he did, though, Jongdae had to try to keep his eyes closed to remain in character. Which he totally failed at. He just _had_ to open them when he heard Sehun’s footsteps come to a halt right next to him. Then, seeing Sehun’s face above him made Jongdae’s own face feel hotter and hotter. Sehun seemed a bit flustered, too, and weren’t his cheeks also a little bit pink?

Sehun flashed a small smile when he saw Jongdae looking up at him, and then proceeded to bend down, almost closing the distance between their lips. The younger’s face just hovered over his own for a couple of seconds, and Jongdae swallowed. This was pretty much a dream come true to him, so why was he feeling so nervous?

Even though he was surrounded by them, Jongdae could only hear a faint, almost inaudible, sound of his classmates yelling and shouting. It was as if he and Sehun were all by themselves, and the other occupants of the room were miles away. All Jongdae could really focus on was the sensation of Sehun’s breathing against his face, and the strands of Sehun’s long fringe brushing against his cheek. He shut his eyes, the close proximity of the other’s face made him feel all dizzy. He then heard Sehun mumble an “okay” to himself, like he tried to get ready for what he was about to do.

Jongdae’s heartbeat was increasing more and more, and his lips were almost trembling, he was sure he was going to die of nervousness if he had to wait even more, finally Sehun took a last deep breath and lowered himself additionally, and-

“Ahem, you know that you two don’t have to kiss if you don’t want to, right?”

Their teacher’s sudden words made Sehun straighten up immediately, and with that Jongdae was brought back to his less Sehun-infused reality. His heart was still hammering in his chest and his palms were sweaty, he felt both relieved and disappointed. Mostly disappointed, though. He couldn’t believe he’d been only millimetres away from kissing Oh Sehun. He glanced up at said boy, who also looked a bit shaken, as if he wasn’t really sure what just had happened.

Jongdae could then suddenly hear his classmates louder than before. Most of them were laughing at his and Sehun’s expense, and Jongdae forced himself to smile sheepishly back at them, trying to hide the fact that his heart felt like it’d been stepped on. He thanked the heavens for the fact that he wasn’t prone to crying, because if he was, he’d probably be bawling by now.

Jongdae got up from the table and went over to Baekhyun, who was laughing and booing simultaneously, shouting stuff like “Sehun, you coward!” and “Be a man and go kiss him!”. It was embarrassing, and Jongdae punched him lightly in the arm.

“Baekhyun, please. Shut up.”

With that, he left the scene.

  
  


Luhan wasn’t the only one who was absent from class during the last couple of practise rounds. The next lesson, Jongdae found out after reading a note on the door to the classroom, _their teacher_ was ill and had stayed home. And she had been the one telling them how important it was for everyone to be present during their lessons. Were they even able to practise without her there?

Jongdae was very early that day, so when he entered the classroom after having read the note he only saw two people in there. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were both currently on stage and wrestled each other, Chanyeol embarrassingly enough losing in spite of his bigger body size. They stopped when they heard Jongdae enter, and Kyungsoo immediately stood up, wiping his hands on his trousers.

“Jongdae! Jongdae, did you see what he did to me? You saw it, right?! He is evil, I swear!” Chanyeol shouted, pointing at Kyungsoo. The latter just rolled his eyes and kicked the air in front of Chanyeol’s face. The taller flinched and then continued gesturing to Kyungsoo’s direction as if saying “Look! I told you!”. Jongdae chose not to comment, he was pretty sure that Chanyeol was the one who’d initiated the wrestling, anyway.

“Uh, is the note on the door real or is it just a prank?” he directed the question at Kyungsoo, knowing that Chanyeol wouldn’t give away if it was a prank or not.

“It’s real! I arrived here first and it was here then, so yeah. I guess we have to practise without Miss Hwang today”, Kyungsoo answered.

“Hopefully Luhan hyung is here as well, so you don’t have to play Snow White a second time”, Chanyeol grinned, finally standing up. “I seriously thought Sehun was gonna kiss you last lesson. Lucky he was interrupted just in time!”

“Yeah… Lucky”, Jongdae said, attempting to play along. Kyungsoo gave him this sympathetic glance, oh god, don’t say he knew about Jongdae’s crush as well…? Chanyeol didn’t seem to have noticed though, which was good, because Jongdae knew he wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about it.

A minute or so later, Minseok entered the classroom, looking around.

“Is Miss Hwang seriously not here today?”

“Nope, doesn’t seem like it”, Jongdae answered him, and soon all twelve of them were gathered in the classroom, the teacher nowhere to be seen.

They decided to carry on with practise anyway, since that’d be what Miss Hwang wanted them to. Junmyun looked very proud when he was declared the substitute for their teacher, and with that he immediately clasped his hands in a Miss Hwang-like manner and told them all to go change into their costumes so that their rehearsal could begin.

  
  


Jongdae was dressing up at his usual place behind a clothes rack, and while he was putting on a pair of trousers he heard a voice that almost made him drop said trousers on the floor.

“Hyung!”

Sehun was standing in front of him, fully clothed, except for the cravat which he was holding in his hand. He was smiling a little, and Jongdae could already feel his face heat up as he hurriedly put on his trousers. Afterwards he looked up at the younger, wondering what he wanted this time.

“Uh, could you help me tie this?” Sehun waved with the piece of fabric in his hand. “It’s kinda difficult to do by myself, so…”

Jongdae tried to sigh exhaustedly, making it seem like he wasn’t as keen on tying the other’s cravat as he actually was.

“Sehun, you’re hopeless. Can’t even dress yourself…” he muttered while smiling playfully at the younger to make it obvious that he was only joking. Sehun handed him the piece of fabric.

“…Just do it.”

Jongdae had never tied a cravat before, but how hard could it be? Well, the close proximity to the other boy made it a tiny bit more difficult, but he would manage. He just had to ignore Sehun’s eyes on him, and it’d be fine.

He threw the fabric around Sehun’s neck, and even though his fingers were trembling he still tied the cravat without any major problems occurring (such as him accidentally strangling Sehun or running out of breath himself from standing so close to the other). At least he received Sehun’s approval, which was more than enough for him.

“It looks good”, Sehun said when he observed the result in the mirror.

“ _You_ look good”, Jongdae was about to say, but stopped himself just in time. No need to make this more awkward than it already was. Instead he just nodded in reply.

Sehun then turned to face him and stared at his face intently. At that Jongdae felt nervous, like he really wanted to hide from the younger’s intense gaze.

“H-hey, what are you-”

“Hyung, you have something… here”, Sehun then said, and reached up to his own face to point at a place by his lips. Jongdae guided his fingers to his own lips, feeling silly for having some dirt or something on his face in front of Sehun.

“No, not there, a little bit above… wait.”

Sehun removed Jongdae’s hand from the shorter’s face and replaced it with his own. He moved a little bit closer to Jongdae as he did so, and Jongdae’s heart probably stopped. Seriously, he couldn’t even breathe while Sehun removed something from the edge of his lips, so when Sehun was done and backed away Jongdae let out a huge breath. It was as if his heart really had stopped before with the way it was rapidly beating in his chest now, like it was compensating for the time it had been out of order.

Looking up at Sehun, Jongdae could swear that he saw the younger smirk for half a second. Then he just looked down at him with no particular emotion on his face. Jongdae cleared his throat, trying to move on from what just had happened.

“Do you need help with putting the crown on too, or are we done?” he said in a playful manner (or at least he tried to). Sehun gave him a look, then smiled widely.

“We’re done. Thanks for your help, hyung.” Sehun’s smile was so sincere Jongdae didn’t want to end their conversation.

“Who usually helps out with the cravat?” he asked as they afterwards made their way out of the storage room.

“Well, it’s mostly people who know about that kind of stuff, like Tao hyung and Yifan hyung. They were already done changing and had left, so that’s why I asked you.”

Of course. It wasn’t something like “I asked because you’re my favourite hyung, Jongdae” or anything. Jongdae felt that useless feeling of jealousy bubble up inside of him at the thought of Tao or Yifan getting to be as close to Sehun as he just had been. In fact, Sehun had only used him as a replacement for them. That kinda hurt.

Why was he feeling so jealous, anyway? He wasn’t usually this possessive. It wasn’t as if Sehun was _his_ or anything, so it was completely irrational. Sehun probably didn’t even like him back anyway. Why would he?

Jongdae was just another classmate, Sehun didn’t interact with him that much. Probably because Jongdae always was so awkward around the younger, and therefore wasn’t really the most fun or interesting person to be around. He didn’t even belong among the more attractive people in the class. He wasn’t tall like Chanyeol and Yifan, he wasn’t athletic like Minseok and Tao, he didn’t have a pretty face like Luhan and Kyungsoo. Of course, he wasn’t _ugly_ , but he certainly wasn’t attractive either. And being average definitely didn’t make gorgeous people like Sehun interested in him.

Besides, maybe Sehun didn’t like guys at all. That was a possibility. He did kiss Luhan, but only for the purpose of the play. Additionally, even though Jongdae had never heard him talk about girls like he was interested in them, he hadn’t heard him talk about boys that way either. It was a bit of a mystery, and Jongdae could only hope that the younger wasn’t straight, at least. Jongdae’s crush would feel so pointless if that was the case.

  
  


Rehearsal went by, and it actually turned out pretty okay even though their teacher wasn’t there. Jongdae kinda liked the freedom they got from their teacher’s absence. He and Chanyeol had declared themselves responsible for the sound, and they had taken the task a little less seriously than what Miss Hwang usually did. Actually, Jongdae had nearly pissed himself laughing when they put on a heavy dubstep track instead of birds chirping in the beginning of the play. Some of their classmates grew a little bit annoyed with their antics, but it was all worth it when Jongdae heard Sehun wheezing of laughter when they’d replaced the soundtrack for the more dramatic parts with the opening song of a popular children’s cartoon.

Things did start to get a little out of hand when they reached the last scene, probably because most of them were tired by then. Instead of doing things according to script, they improvised and came up with some kind of alternate ending, where every character in the entire play were on stage. Baekhyun, or Happy, immediately walked up to Minseok the Mirror and asked if he was beautiful, only to be answered with a roll of the eyes. Tao, or the queen, strolled around on stage looking at the dwarfs with interest, and then suddenly threw his arms around Jongin, asking if he could bring one of the dwarfs home with him. Jongin looked terrified for real, and Kyungsoo had to go pry him off of Tao’s grip, all while still trying to stay in character as Grumpy.

So yeah, things started to get out of control a little bit, so it was no surprise that people went wild when the kiss scene was about to happen.

One’d think that Jongdae had gotten used to the kiss by now, since he had already witnessed it, but he really hadn’t. Quite the opposite, actually. It was as if it got worse every time he had to watch the two pushing their lips together, and it certainly didn’t get better now when half the class were shouting “Make out! Make out!” at the top of their lungs.

Sehun’s facial expression was hard to read, but Luhan did look a bit annoyed.

“What do we get if we do it?” the older asked.

“You… get to make out?” Jongin tried, and Luhan rolled his eyes.

“We’re not doing it unless we actually get something out if it, right Sehunnie?” he said and nudged Sehun, who shrugged. Jongdae swallowed. When had Luhan started to call Sehun by a nickname like that? How close were the two of them, even?

“I’ll buy you bubble tea after school! How does that sound?” Chanyeol said, and Luhan eyed him.

“And ice cream.”

“A-and ice cream”, Chanyeol repeated, and Luhan sat himself down on the table, grabbing Sehun by the shirt collar and pulling him closer.

“That’s a good deal, right Jongdae?” Chanyeol then said good-heartedly and slung his arm around Jongdae’s shoulder. When he received no response from the shorter, he turned to look at him.

“Jongdae?”

The mentioned boy vaguely heard Chanyeol’s worried tone, but he was concentrated on the two in the middle of the stage. Just before Luhan’s lips collided with Sehun’s, the latter looked at Jongdae intensely with an unidentifiable expression. Jongdae’s stomach was already a bit unstable from that, and when their lips actually touched he felt like he was going to throw up.

“I… need to go the toilet”, he said to nobody in particular as he fled the room, ignoring Chanyeol’s shout of surprise from behind him.

  
  


Jongdae took a deep breath when he had left the classroom. He sat himself down on a bench, feeling tears about to form in his eyes. How stupid. He almost never cried and now he nearly did, for a really dumb thing too.

Suddenly he heard footsteps coming up behind him. Shit. He didn’t want anyone to see him in this embarrassing state. Unless it was Sehun coming to declare his undying love for him and apologise for not having said anything before, or something.

Of course it wasn’t Sehun, he thought when he heard the voice accompanying the footsteps.

“Jongdae-yah?”

It was Luhan. Of all people. Jongdae forced himself to reply, voice feeling a bit shaky.

“Y-yes?” He tried as hard as he could to resist the urge to cry while Luhan sat down next to him on the bench.

“Are you feeling well?” the older asked, and Jongdae nodded.

“Yeah, I was… I only needed some fresh air, the classroom was feeling a bit cramped, I guess”, he lied, and Luhan eyed him somewhat sternly.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Huh?”

“You know, you’ve been acting pretty strange lately. Especially around the, uh, kiss scene. It seems like you’ve been trying to, well… keep it from happening, or at least avoid it as much as possible. And… hey, are you crying?!” Luhan suddenly exclaimed when he looked at Jongdae. The latter flinched at the words and immediately directed his fingers to his cheeks. They were indeed wet. Jongdae wiped them with his sleeve. This felt humiliating.

“I’m… I’m fine”, he said, wanting Luhan to continue talking.

“Are you sure?” Luhan put his hand on Jongdae’s shoulder and suddenly his face was all up in Jongdae’s personal space, so the latter automatically backed away a little bit. He then nodded, hopefully he didn’t come off as too rude, and Luhan gave him a worried glance before continuing.

“Well, uh… this kinda further proves my point that you’re acting strangely. You just ran away from the classroom and now you’re crying?! Really, I couldn’t go on kissing Sehunnie, I had to check how my friend was doing. And I realised that free bubble tea and ice cream aren’t worth it if you have to break someone’s heart in order to get it”, Luhan said and sounded determined. Jongdae blinked a few times, then it dawned on him what the older meant.

“Hyung…” he started.

“Yes?”

“You’re so… _cheesy._ God.”

“Wha- hey, I’m trying to be a nice friend here, okay? Don’t make fun of me!” Luhan was almost offended, and Jongdae laughed a little, wiping his eyes again.

“Sorry. It’s really nice of you. Thanks for caring.”

Luhan nodded.

“So, because of that, there’s a thing I wanted to ask you”, he took a deep breath, “Uh, I… I don’t know how to say this, but, well… do you like me? Like… _like_ like? And that’s why you’re not feeling well about that scene? I’m terribly flattered but, uh… I-I’m definitely not judging you or anything, I mean, I like guys as well, so don’t think I’m grossed out by you or something, and I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want to, but-”

“Hyung, calm down!”

Jongdae was almost laughing at how wrong Luhan was. The situation was close to comical, and Jongdae found it difficult not to smile even though he had recently been crying.

The older of the two directed his eyes to Jongdae and looked at him confusedly.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t like you that way”, Jongdae continued, trying his best not to burst out laughing. For some reason Luhan’s puzzled expression made it really hard for him to do so.

“Phew”, Luhan then breathed out, “that’s a relief, because I don’t see you as anything other than a friend, either. A very precious friend, but still, just a friend. So… this was awkward.” He smiled a bit sheepishly at Jongdae, but then he looked like he was hit with something (realisation perhaps?).

“But then, wha-” Luhan started, but Jongdae interrupted him.

“Sehun. I like Sehun”, he said and looked around carefully, as if the mentioned boy was standing right behind him and listening to their conversation. He wasn’t.

“Ohh. Right. I see. That’s why you ran away. That’s why you’ve been trying to stop that scene”, Luhan seemed to let the realisation sink in.

“Wait, were you the one who called me?!” he added as an afterthought.

“Well, yeah. Sorry”, Jongdae saw no point in hiding anything anymore, he had pretty much told Luhan everything by now.

“You better be, I thought Miss Hwang was gonna kill me!” Luhan exclaimed.

“It’s your own fault for not having your phone on silent mode, you know.”

“Not if you’re calling me on purpose in the middle of class! But whatever, back to the subject. Do you think he returns your feelings? I heard from Minseok that you played Snow White when I was ill, and according to him, both of you seemed a bit flustered over the kiss scene…” Luhan wiggled his eyebrows once, then looked at Jongdae expectantly.

“Uh, I don’t really think- Wait. So… you don’t like Sehun?”

“What? No!” A frown overtook Luhan’s face. Jongdae felt very confused.

“But… you’ve kissed him! More than once! And you said he was attractive”, he stated, and Luhan rolled his eyes.

“Jongdae-yah, we’re only kissing because the script tells us to, haven’t you understood that? And yeah, I said he was good-looking, but am I not allowed to think someone looks nice without being attracted to them? You look pretty nice yourself, but as I said before, I don’t like you that way. Besides, Sehunnie is like a little brother. A cute little brother.”

“A little brother who’s both taller and looks more mature than you”, Jongdae added, trying to ignore the flattered feeling he got from Luhan casually calling him good-looking. Instead he focused on the relief he was experiencing thanks to Luhan’s explanation.

“Well, even if he - as you say - looks more mature, I have the more mature personality. And I’m manlier than he is. He’s still just a baby”, Luhan replied proudly. Jongdae snorted.

“Don’t you think he likes you, though?” Jongdae then said a bit anxiously, and Luhan shrugged.

“Well, I wouldn’t know that. You know how he is, he’s good at hiding his feelings sometimes. But I don’t think so?” He sounded like he genuinely didn’t know. Jongdae sighed, and Luhan patted him on the back.

“Just do your best! He’ll probably realise what a cute guy you are, if he hasn’t already!” After that, Luhan gave him a stern look before continuing to speak.

“But don’t try to sabotage the play, alright? From what I’ve noticed, you haven’t done anything _bad_ , but it’s still not okay.”

“I-”

“You know what? Jealousy is an ugly thing, Jongdae. Good thing you’re so handsome”, Luhan exclaimed and patted Jongdae once on the back again. Then he went back to the classroom, leaving Jongdae half confused, half relieved.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> luhan enters, says some weird stuff, then leaves (hello yes i am alive and updating!!!!!! yeA)
> 
> as you may have noticed, there are some small changes to the fic: i've made chapter titles for all the chapters, hopefully they make sense
> 
> also, another thing, i didn't realise the fic title is kind of a pun since sehun's family name is oh, lmao. i was just thinking of the neon bunny song when i came up with it haha
> 
> i wish you a nice day/night wherever you are ^^


	6. The final scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a ridiculously long chapter, get ready

Sehun had dyed his hair. It shouldn’t have affected Jongdae that much, but it did. Jongdae was almost _mesmerised_. The light brown colour was perfect on the other, and it made him look even more prince-like, if possible. Jongdae found himself imagining how it would feel to run his fingers through Sehun’s hair more than once. As if changing the colour also would change the texture of it. Stupid. Anyway, it looked nice.

The others also seemed to approve of the change, especially their teacher who thought Sehun had done it just for the purpose of the play. Jongdae felt a sting of jealousy when she praised his new look, he wanted to be the one to shower Sehun in compliments. But somehow his mouth didn’t seem to be able to form a single word. Instead he just stood there, a little bit away from where his classmates had gathered around Sehun, simply observing the younger. He felt disappointed with himself, but then again, his opinion probably didn’t matter that much to Sehun. Stating it would be pointless.

The day Sehun had entered the classroom with a new hair colour was also the last class of practise before the performances the next week. Jongdae was already feeling nervous, even though he only had a small role in the play. He supposed he was nervous about the entirety of the play, if someone would forget their lines, if the CD player would stop working, if they lost some of the most important props. Anything could happen, and that made him feel a bit anxious.

Something that made Jongdae feel a tiny bit better, though, was the talk he’d had with Luhan the previous lesson. It was good to know that the mentioned boy didn’t have any romantic feelings for Sehun, even if he couldn’t be sure about how the younger felt. But Jongdae did feel kinda safe with the knowledge that the kiss scene wouldn’t make Luhan and Sehun start to date, get married, move to a roomy cottage by the sea, adopt three kids and a dog and live happily ever after.

Since it was one of the final weeks of the semester, Jongdae was dead tired. He had a lot, really, _a lot_ , of exams and the fact that he had to attend this last class of practise annoyed him, because he knew he could’ve been at home studying instead, doing something more productive than this. He didn’t even need to practise, he had a tiny amount of lines and knew them and probably everyone else’s lines as well, by now.

What also made him feel exhausted was that he’d attended a party the day before - Baekhyun and Chanyeol had pretty much forced him to go. Jongdae had declined their previous invitations, feeling stressed out over all the schoolwork he had yet to do, but this time they wouldn’t have it. He didn’t understand how they found the time and energy to party during the final weeks, but then again, maybe they didn’t care about their grades as much as he did.

Anyway, Jongdae felt completely worn out and almost screwed up one of his lines much to his teacher’s dismay. Not that he cared that much, though. He’d compensate for his shitty acting today with flawless, Oscar-worthy acting during the performances next week.

  


Said performances approached quickly, and it was the next week in no time at all. They’d decided to have them on a Friday, and because they had to work with the play the entire day they didn’t have any of their normal classes.

The play was supposed to be performed at the school auditorium, and they were performing it three times. The first time was for the other students of the school, or at least those who wanted to see it. It started at one in the afternoon, and since the play was about two hours long they’d be finished around three o'clock. Then they would perform it two additional times - at four and seven - in front of their families and whoever else wanted to come, really. Posters advertising the play were up around the area and hopefully they would attract a bigger audience.

They started really early that day with setting up the stage and carrying all the props from their normal practise room to the auditorium, and made sure they were in place. Then, it was time for their final dress rehearsal.

  


(They had finally found a black wig for Luhan to cover up his bright yellow hair with. That combined with the dress and some rosy blush on his cheeks (courtesy of their teacher) made him look adorably feminine, something that Junmyun was quick to point out.

“Luhan… I don’t know how to say this but… Y-you look beautiful”, he uttered while grabbing Luhan’s hand. The latter stared at him in disbelief and after a couple of seconds Junmyun suddenly let go of said hand, looking somewhat embarrassed.

“A-as a girl I mean! You look just like my type of girl! All pretty and stuff. Um”, Junmyun tried to improve the situation for him but only seemed to be making things worse. Luhan didn’t look too happy, and Jongdae had to grab Junmyun by the shoulders and lead him away from the other.)

  


Their final rehearsal was. A. Disaster. They’d decided to have it right before lunch, and when lunchtime finally came around Jongdae couldn’t eat a single bit of his food. He was such a nervous wreck.

During the rehearsal, Sehun had _completely_ forgotten his lines due to him being anxious. Luhan had also been on edge, snapping at the younger when they reached the final scene and the boy’s legs didn’t seem to work as they should. It was so unlike Luhan to do something like that, so the majority of them jumped a little in surprise when it happened. Unfortunately, Minseok was just carrying the framed glass he usually had in front of him on stage to represent the mirror, and dropped it in shock.

In less than a second the glass shattered into hundreds of small pieces covering the entire floor backstage, and they had to clean it up in the little time they had left before their performance started. It was a lot of work, and when they were done at last and could go have lunch, there was only half an hour until the clock turned one in the afternoon.

“At least we’re lucky it was glass in the frame and not a real mirror”, Yixing had said, trying to remain optimistic. “If it was the real thing we would’ve earned seven years of bad luck.”

  


Everyone seemed kinda irritated and snappish after the incident, so during lunch all of them just sat by themselves, eating their food in silence. Or, in Jongdae’s case, attempting to. However, he had a hard time even looking at the kimbap he’d brought. He couldn’t stop thinking about their performance that was to start in less than thirty minutes, how it would turn out. Everyone seemed to be in such a bad mood, which didn’t help at all. It made things, if possible, worse. Jongdae really was sure that the performance would be even crappier than their previous rehearsal, and it made his stomach do somersaults. And not the good, fluttering kind either, but violent flips, making him feel like throwing up any second. Therefore he left the table, running towards the nearest toilet.

Upon reaching it Jongdae didn’t even think of checking if it was locked, thus he was very surprised when the door didn’t open as he pulled the handle.

“I-it’s occupied!” came a voice from the other side. A familiar voice. It was a bit shaky, but Jongdae could still recognise it.

“Sehun? Are you alright?” he asked worriedly.

“Jongdae hyung?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Uh, wait a second.”

After literally two seconds, Sehun opened the door, looking down at the ground.

“I’m sorry for occupying the toilet, I… I wasn’t even using it. Here, go”, he gestured to the open door but Jongdae had his eyes elsewhere.

“You didn’t answer my question. Are you alright?” Jongdae felt the flips in his stomach being replaced by a somewhat heavy feeling, not making his mood any better. Seeing Sehun looking so troubled made him feel troubled as well.

“I’m…” Sehun looked up, and he wasn’t crying, but seemed very close to.

“C'mon, we can go somewhere else”, Jongdae took Sehun’s hand and dragged him away, not wanting to block the restroom. It wasn’t until they ended up in one of the dressing rooms backstage that he realised what he was doing, and quickly let go of the younger’s hand, feeling embarrassed.

Sehun sat down on a stool, and Jongdae followed suit.

“I… it was my fault. The performance is gonna turn out like crap and everyone’ll blame me”, Sehun said quietly and put his face in his hands. Jongdae didn’t really know what to say, he wasn’t good at this, comforting people. He awkwardly put a hand on the other boy’s shoulder.

“Of course we won’t blame you if it-”

“But it’ll be my fault!” Sehun interrupted, his voice coming out muffled because of his hands covering his entire face. “I was the one who was nervous and screwed up during the rehearsal, causing all the stuff to happen. Now everyone’s mad at me. And it’s only going to make the performance worse! I won’t be able to act, you’ll have to find another prince, I’ll just ruin everything for you guys, I’m sorry-”

“Shh, no one’s blaming you, okay. Everyone’s a bit on edge right now, and nobody’s expecting you to not feel nervous. After all, you’re the youngest and you have the least experience. It’s alright. We’ve all been there.” Jongdae mentally patted himself on the back, he was doing well. Sehun seemed to loosen up a little, too.  
“And we need you. Who else would play the prince?”

Sehun looked up at him.

“You could. You’d make a perfect prince”, he said bluntly, and Jongdae felt his face grow several degrees hotter in a matter of milliseconds. A new record, probably. Sehun was still looking at him and Jongdae had to avert his eyes, looking at the wall beside them instead. White paint sure was fascinating sometimes.

“I, uh, well…” he started, “I- I couldn’t possibly do that. I’d rather play the evil queen than having to kiss Luhan hyung, to be honest.” He made a disgusted face and Sehun laughed a little, before looking down again.

“He hates me now.”

“Luhan hyung?” Jongdae asked, although it was obvious who Sehun was dramatically referring to. The younger nodded, and Jongdae continued speaking.

“Don’t be silly. The guy would never hate you. He was simply nervous, just like you, and it caused him to snap. He really adores you, y'know.”

“Really?” Sehun glanced up at him another time, and this time Jongdae’s stomach started doing these somersaults again. But for the wrong reason. Sehun seemed so hopeful, Luhan must mean a lot to him.

Jongdae had managed to ignore his nausea throughout their entire conversation, but now he felt it coming back to him. Shit. Before he even had the chance to stop himself, he uttered the question he’d had in his head since the start of the semester.

“Yeah. Do… do you like Luhan hyung?”

Sehun almost jumped a little at the question. Jongdae felt like hitting himself in the head with a goddamn sledgehammer. Did he really just ask that?

“Well, of course I like him, but… you mean like in a romantic way?”

Jongdae nodded slowly. He’d been wondering about this for months, but now he wasn’t really sure if he wanted to know the answer or not.

Suddenly, Sehun started to chuckle.

“No, I don’t”, he said with laughter in his voice, “why would you even think that?”

It was as if someone had hit Jongdae in the head. Not with a sledgehammer, more like a very large pillow or something. Something that made him less tense.

“You’re… kissing and… stuff”, he said, feeling somewhat conflicted. At first he’d felt relieved, Sehun didn’t have a crush on Luhan. Oh Sehun, the object of Jongdae’s affections for almost a year, didn’t have a crush on Luhan, Jongdae’s friend. He could shout out of happiness. Run a mile, or something.

But then, Sehun’s reaction made him worried too. He realised that the chances of Sehun liking him weren’t better just because Sehun didn’t like Luhan. In fact, Jongdae was pretty sure Sehun didn’t like guys at all. He had to be straight, and that’s why he reacted like that. How awkward.

“We only kiss in the play”, Sehun said. “I’m not kissing Luhan hyung; the prince is kissing Snow White.”

“Yeah. It was stupid of me to ask, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Sehun looked at his watch. “Y'know what, hyung. You actually managed to make me feel better. Thank you.”

Sehun was grinning widely, and Jongdae just found himself giving the other a small smile in response. His own face was probably the same colour as Snow White’s apple by now, Jongdae was sure.

“Come, let’s join the others. There’s only fifteen minutes left and we have to get ready.” This time Sehun reached out his hand, and Jongdae took it without any doubts. Somehow, while comforting Sehun, he’d also made himself relax. His stomach felt calm. Maybe the performance wouldn’t turn out to be a catastrophe after all.

  


It didn’t. It went perfectly alright. Of course, Sehun had been a bit tense in the beginning, and it didn’t make it any better when Luhan appeared on stage for the first time and several whistles were heard from the audience (probably some of Luhan’s classmates).

However, later on Sehun seemed to relax, and he didn’t even react when certain parts of the audience went wild during the kiss scene. A scene that Jongdae was kinda fine with, now that he knew that Luhan and Sehun didn’t have feelings for each other. Okay, maybe he was still a _tiny_ bit jealous of Luhan’s position, but it was alright. They were only going to do it two times more, and then (hopefully) never again.

Everyone else did well too. The people in the audience flinched when Tao, or the ~~drama~~ queen, started shouting in rage, and they laughed when the dwarfs entered the stage. Minseok had to stand behind an empty frame instead of the glass he’d originally had, but it didn’t make any difference, really. Jongdae’s sneezes had been very convincing, too. Oscar-worthy acting, right there.

So in short, everything went as it should. They even got a standing ovation when they were done. It certainly brought all of them out of their bad moods.

“The final dress rehearsal is supposed to fail. That way the real performance will turn out a success”, Miss Hwang chirped happily when they gathered backstage. “You were all great, I’m so proud.”

  


Something that they always did when having a performance was to put twelve small boxes with everyone’s names on by the exit, for the audience to fill with letters, gifts, tokens of appreciation. After they were finished they went to check these boxes.

Since the audience this time had been students from their school, most of the gifts weren’t very serious. Chanyeol received a note stating that he was unusually tall for a dwarf, while Luhan’s box was filled with small flowers, and equally as many letters telling him what a flower boy he was. Tao found a small box of sweets in his, shouting in joy over actually getting something valuable. Baekhyun ended up persuading Tao to share them with him, however. Jongdae didn’t understand how Baekhyun managed to do that. He totally had the younger wrapped around his finger, or something.

When Jongdae checked his box he wasn’t surprised to find several tissues in there. Unamused, he went to throw the contents of his box into the trash. That’s when he noticed a small post-it note at the bottom of said box. It was folded in half, and his name was written on the outside. Jongdae couldn’t recognise the handwriting, but then again he wasn’t really an expert on how other people’s handwriting looked. He barely recognised his own at times.

When he unfolded the note and started reading, his eyes widened.

“ _Hi!  
You were great today!! I really liked your acting. Actually, I like you, too. Could we meet outside the auditorium, under that huge tree, when the last performance is done (around nine, right)? I’m looking forward.”_

Jongdae had to try to calm himself down. He hadn’t ever received a letter like this before, and he didn’t know what to do. Who…?

It had to be someone who knew about his orientation. After all, they attended an all boys’ school. Was this person even serious? It had to be a joke, Jongdae realised. Why would anyone write him something like that?

“Yah, real funny Baekhyun”, he said after walking up to his friend, flashing him the note. Baekhyun skimmed through the letter and grinned obnoxiously.

“Wooow, Jongdae! You have a secret admirer. Everyone!” he raised his voice and repeated, “Jongdae has a secret admirer!”

The others turned their heads towards him and Jongdae put his hands up to his face in humiliation.

“Oh my god, shut up. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“No, of course not”, Baekhyun shook his head. “Why would I do something like that?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering too”, Jongdae replied, irritated.

“Who’s your secret admirer, Jongdae?” Chanyeol asked, suddenly having appeared right next to him. Jongdae groaned.

“I don’t-” he started, but Baekhyun interrupted him.

“Well, kinda the point of having a secret admirer is that they’re secret, so we don’t know. However, he received this letter”, Baekhyun then read the note out loud for all the others to hear. When he was done, Chanyeol patted Jongdae’s back a little too violently for his liking, and someone among the others wolf whistled.

“Geez, it’s just a prank. Which one of you guys did it? It _was_ you, Baekhyun, right?”

Baekhyun shook his head yet again, and Jongdae sighed.

“Why do I even try…” he mumbled, “Well, one of you guys is out to trick me and I’m gonna find out who, alright? And, sorry, I’m not going to that tree.”

“Aw, but you’re gonna make your secret admirer sad!” Chanyeol tried to pout but was grinning too hard to be able to succeed.

“Yeah, right. Please be quiet.”

  


Since they had about an hour until their next performance was about to start, they all had a break. Jongdae spent his by eating a bit of the kimbap he’d left untouched during their lunch break, as he was less of a nervous wreck now.

Miss Hwang had told them all to be back ten minutes before the play was starting, but since Jongdae didn’t have anything else to do he went back twenty minutes in advance. He would’ve been the first one to arrive if it wasn’t for Junmyun, who hadn’t left the hall in the first place. However, soon the others started to come back as well, only a few of them were missing.

“Have any of you seen the queen? I need to talk to him since he’s in the first scene and all”, their teacher asked, Jongdae finding it kind of amusing how she just referred to everyone by their roles instead of their actual names.

Yifan and a bunch of the others who had gone to a nearby convenience store on their break shook their heads.

“He didn’t tag along with us.”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Sehun or Baekhyun either”, Minseok stated thoughtfully, and Jongdae had to agree, he hadn’t seen a trace of them since their break started.

“I’ll go look for Tao”, he volunteered, “maybe the other two are with him.”

  


Jongdae first searched through the entire backstage area, all the dressing rooms. Then he went on to the nearest restrooms, finding no one. He realised he had to go look in the rest of the school, sighing when thinking about what a buttload of work that’d be.

He decided to head for the corridor where Tao’s locker was situated first of all, but nope, nobody there either. After sighing in irritation for a second time (he didn’t have Tao’s phone number), Jongdae remembered that he had yet to check their usual classroom. He ran there, and unfortunately, no signs of Tao. He was just about to leave when he heard a familiar tone coming from the props storage. It was very muffled, so it just came out as incomprehensible mumbles, but Jongdae was sure it was Baekhyun’s voice. As he walked closer to the storage room, he could hear the voice clearer.

“-so cute… Do you know how much I like you?… Kiss me, and maybe you’ll find out-”

Okay, _what_ was actually going on in there? Jongdae tried to keep himself from making a disgusted expression. He never knew Baekhyun could be this cheesy, what the fuck. He reluctantly opened the door to the props storage, and instantly closed it upon seeing the sight before him. Maybe… it was time to head back.

  


“Did you find him?” was the question Jongdae was met with when he joined the others again. He nodded slowly.

“Well… I guess you could say that the queen is making out with Happy”, he said, feeling satisfied when his choice of words made his classmates confused for a second or two. Then, it dawned on them.

Chanyeol and Luhan started shouting at the same time, making it difficult to understand what they were actually saying. Jongin whistled loudly and Kyungsoo made a face that looked like the perfect visualisation of the word “ew”. Yifan, on the other hand, paled a little.

Unable to calm her students down, Miss Hwang cleared her throat awkwardly.

“Well, um, are they coming soon, or…?”

“I’m not going back there again. Let me just… call Baekhyun instead”, Jongdae said, feeling stupid over not coming up with that idea earlier. Perhaps he wouldn’t have needed to see Tao putting his hands on Baekhyun’s waist, and Baekhyun happily throwing his arms around the taller’s shoulders, ~~grossly~~ eagerly letting their lips meet. Jongdae wasn’t too keen on watching other people make out, especially not if it was his obnoxious friend and the guy who played Snow White’s evil stepmother.

When Baekhyun finally answered Jongdae’s phone call he sounded very annoyed.

“What do you want?”

“Is that how you normally answer people’s calls? How rude. Anyway, can you and Tao come back to the auditorium now? The performance starts in ten minutes.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure”, Baekhyun replied, then he was quiet for a second. “Wait, how did you know Tao’s with me?”

“I know everything”, Jongdae stated ominously and ended the call.

Okay, so now Baekhyun and Tao were (hopefully) on their way back. Then, the only one missing was Sehun.

Speaking of the devil (or, in this case, the prince), Sehun came rushing into the hall after a minute or so, apologising for being late. He didn’t even look at Jongdae once, sitting down next to Jongin at the other end of the room they had gathered in. Of course. Jongdae didn’t even know why he expected anything different. Maybe he had thought they’d become closer after having that conversation before. When they obviously hadn’t. How stupid of him.

When Baekhyun and Tao arrived they were met with a big applause, confusion appearing on their otherwise pretty flushed faces. The only one who was equally as confused as the pair was Sehun, who looked around with a puzzled expression asking why everyone were clapping their hands. After Jongin whispered the reason to him, Sehun probably clapped the loudest of them all, Baekhyun and Tao looking more and more embarrassed as they realised why they had received such an applause. Jongdae almost snickered, this was a nice revenge on Baekhyun for embarrassing him before.

  


Their second performance went just as well as the first one. Perhaps even better, since they were generally less nervous now. The audience seemed very satisfied and checking their boxes was a more exciting experience than it’d been the first time around. Mostly because a big part of the crowd had been families to some of them, so those who had their family there naturally got a nice gift or two in their box. Jongdae’s family didn’t attend this performance, instead they were going to the last one at seven, and therefore he didn’t expect his box to contain anything out of the ordinary. Jongdae waited with looking in it though, he wanted to see what the others got first.

A lot of them received a small amount of money, a snack or flowers from their families. Yixing found a cute doodle of him in his box, which he was very happy about. Luhan gained lots of flowers again, but he also received a rather interesting note.

“ _I’m glad you wore a black wig, because your normal hair colour reminds me of a breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, butter, and a glass of freshly pressed orange juice to the side.”_

There were multiple giggles from the others as Luhan read the note out loud, looking incredibly offended. Tao laughed the loudest out of all of them, pointing at Luhan’s disgruntled facial expression.

“My hair style is funky!” Luhan tried to defend himself, and at that Jongdae couldn’t help but break out in laughter as well. Poor Luhan, trying to stay cool when everyone else made fun of him.

Jongdae once again found a couple of tissues in his box, throwing them in the trash immediately. His heart started beating a little bit faster when he found a note that said _“You did well!”_ only to be disappointed when he realised that everyone else had received the exact same note in their boxes. Then, at the very bottom of his box, he discovered a post-it note similar to the one he’d been given after their first performance. Before he even got the chance to read it, Baekhyun popped up from behind him.

“Ooh, isn’t this from the same person as before?” he asked loudly and grabbed the note.

“Baekhyun can you stay away from my box?” Jongdae said as he tried to get the letter back, unfortunately without success. “Why do you want to humiliate me so much?” he then added, a little bit quieter. Baekhyun grinned back at him.

“Payback. You were the one who told the others about me and Tao, yeah? You humiliate me, I humiliate you back, it’s only fair. Besides, I’m helping you! Maybe, if Sehun hears about these letters he’ll get really jealous and finally make a move on you”, Baekhyun said silently so no one else could overhear them, and Jongdae kind of froze at the last words he said. He hadn’t even considered the fact that Sehun probably heard about the letter. This felt even more embarrassing now.

“Y'know, that plan would only work if he already liked me, so it’s not a good idea. It’d be better if you did something to _make_ him like me, instead”, Jongdae sighed, trying to keep Baekhyun from reading the note out loud this time as well. However, that was an effort gone to waste as Baekhyun opened the note and cleared his throat audibly.

“Stop being so pessimistic, what the heck, you’re not usually like this. What makes you think he doesn’t like you back?” he whispered, and before Jongdae had a chance to answer him, Baekhyun started reading, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“‘ _Hi,_  
_I sent you a note after the last performance, but since I’m afraid of you not noticing it, I’m writing you a second one. Just to make sure you get my message._  
_I like you. A lot! And I’d really like to tell you that in person. Could you meet me under the big tree outside the auditorium after the last performance?_  
_Please trust me, Jongdae hyung. I li ke you.'_”

Baekhyun finished reading and Jongdae could swear his heart stopped beating for a moment. Everyone else in the room had been quiet when the letter was being read, but now there were several chuckles and a _squeal_ (Jongdae didn’t know who it was and didn’t want to know either).

“Wow, this guy sure is dedicated, huh. Coming to both of the performances and leaving notes. He really wants to get his message across”, Baekhyun stated with laughter in his voice. “And 'Jongdae _hyung_ ’! Dang, Jongdae, the one having a crush on you is a younger _guy_! How does it feel?”

The only thing Jongdae could feel at the moment was everyone’s eyes on him. His face was probably cherry red by now, and he had the childish urge to run away and lock himself up in the restroom (like a certain someone had done before). But nope, he tried to stay there, reluctantly speaking up over the sounds of people talking and laughing.

“Can… Can the person who wrote this just stop? What have I ever done to you to make you wanna humiliate me so much? Seriously, who is it?” he looked around the room. “Hey, Luhan hyung, you’re laughing, was it you?!”

Luhan stopped laughing but was still smiling amusedly.

“Jongdae-yah, you have to be more self-confident. Someone could very well have a crush on you, it’s not impossible. But I agree with what you said before, it feels like a very Baekhyun thing to do…”

Jongdae immediately turned to Baekhyun again and the latter waved with his hands in the air.

“Hey, it’s not me! How many times are you gonna suspect me? I have an alibi!”

Baekhyun pointed to Tao, who nodded.

“I was with him the whole break before the second performance, and he didn’t put anything in your box! We weren’t even anywhere close to that thing!”

“And you expect me to believe that? Also, what if he went and put the letter in my box during the play, when he wasn’t on stage?”

“I was backstage the entire time! Trust me!” Baekhyun retaliated, and before anyone of those involved in the discussion (because most of the others had tired and moved onto talking about other things amongst themselves. Jongdae wished he was one of them and this conversation wasn’t about him) could say anything else Miss Hwang entered the room, managing to calm everyone down with her powers of authority.

  


As they yet again went on break, Jongdae decided to join Yixing who had settled himself on the edge of the stage with his legs dangling. Yixing’s calm and somehow safe company was what he needed right now. Jongdae trusted Yixing, he was sure the latter wasn’t the one who had sent him that prank letter.

Yixing hadn’t only received a picture in his box, he had also been given a bag of snacks that he gladly shared with a somewhat hungry Jongdae (he was a growing boy, okay, he was allowed to be hungry at irregular times). The two of them sat there, had a nice chat, and Jongdae almost managed to forget about the stuff from before that had bugged him so much. Almost.

Because suddenly Luhan appeared and told Jongdae that Baekhyun wanted to speak with him.

“Couldn’t he just have walked here instead of sending you?” Jongdae sighed, not very happy about having to leave Yixing and the snacks behind and instead go talk to ~~his best friend~~ his enemy for life.

“I… I didn’t think of that. Why did he have to ask me to come fetch you?!” Luhan’s facial expression was like a mix of being annoyed and dumbfounded. “Well, anyway, he wants to see you, and he’s over there, backstage, so you better go talk to him yourself because I’m not gonna act as some kind of mailman here.”

“Okay, whatever you say, egg yolk hyung”, Jongdae said, accepting his fate. Luhan grumbled at his new nickname.

“I should’ve chosen 'Cotton Candy Pink’ instead of 'Blonde Bombshell’”, he mumbled before joining Yixing, both of them speaking enthusiastically with each other in a very advanced level of Chinese (a much higher level than Jongdae had reached in his studies of the language).

  


As Jongdae entered the backstage area he looked around for Baekhyun, but found no one. Confused, he decided to shout the other boy’s name in an attempt to get him to reveal himself (he wasn’t hiding, was he? Oh, please no).

“Baek-”

Jongdae’s attempt was a failure, partly because he didn’t shout as loud as he’d planned, but also because he was interrupted.

“Ah, Jongdae hyung! You’re… here. I was looking for you”, said a voice that certainly didn’t belong to Baekhyun. At all. Jongdae didn’t really know what he felt when Sehun came out of one of the dressing rooms, walking up to him. Sehun. Of all people. Literally, what was even going on?

It all became even weirder when Sehun grabbed his arm, mumbling something about having to talk to him and dragged him into a dressing room, the same one he’d just exited. Also, the same one they both had that conversation in earlier that day. Funny.

When Sehun had shut the door and they were standing inside the small dressing room, Jongdae finally came to his senses.

“Um, sorry, but Baekhyun… he was looking for me, I think. So… yeah. Maybe I should go-”

“Baek-? Oh, no, no, that can wait! I really need to talk to you. Now.”

Sehun seemed a bit nervous and therefore Jongdae felt very nervous as well. He didn’t know what was going to happen, and he didn’t dare hope anything. Of course, the situation would be ideal if Sehun was going to declare his eternal, undying love for Jongdae, but Jongdae was pretty sure that wasn’t what was about to happen. After all, things never seemed to go his way.

As he was standing there, feeling anxious, he spotted Sehun closing up on him. He was looking a bit more determined this time around. Jongdae’s heart started pounding like crazy when Sehun moved even closer, backing him up against the wall behind him. Holy shit.

Upon actually standing with his back to the wall, not being able to move any further away, Jongdae noticed Sehun was only centimetres away. Then, in one swift motion Sehun moved his arms, putting his hands on the wall, on both sides of Jongdae, trapping him. _Well_. This was an interesting development. Jongdae found that even though he was trembling out of nervousness, his heart was throbbing at a rapid speed and he had trouble swallowing since his mouth was so dry, he didn’t mind this position at all.

That changed, however, when Sehun cleared his throat and said three, simple words.

“You like me.”

It was said more as a statement than a question and Jongdae kind of wished that he had the ability to teleport himself away from there. Escape this situation. Perhaps even escape the country, he felt so… he didn’t even know. It was awful. Sehun knew, somehow he knew, and… what was he going to do about it?

Jongdae almost felt scared. Scared of rejection, of his classmates making fun of him, of the whole school getting to know. But mostly of making Sehun feel uncomfortable. Damage the nice little friendship thing they had going on. Maybe getting rid of every little bit of trust Sehun had in Jongdae. Now that he thought about it, it was close to terrifying.

Since Jongdae had somewhat zoned out when Sehun had asked him the question (or rather, stated the facts), the latter repeated his statement.

“You _like_ me.”

It actually did succeed in snapping Jongdae out of his own thoughts, but he still wasn’t able to give Sehun a proper response.

“I uh, I like… what? I mean- yes? W-wait, no! Or-”

“You’re very obvious, you know”, Sehun then stated, a small smile on his lips. Jongdae felt incredibly embarrassed after stuttering out all that nonsense, but when he spotted the smile, almost a smirk, he nearly shivered. The position they were in, and Sehun’s apparent confidence, exposing his feelings like this, it was all very… absurd. Absurdly _hot_. Jongdae nervously licked his lips and looked down, he couldn’t look Sehun in the eyes.

“Hyung, you tried to change the roles, make someone else play the prince. You also tried changing the script to remove the kiss scene, and then you attempted to change the whole play to the original version since you heard there wasn’t a kiss in that one… Um, and then you interrupted the kiss during practise. Or, kept it from happening. More than once. And that class when Luhan hyung was ill, you substituted him and played Snow White, was it all just to get to kiss me? In the end, you didn’t even succeed. Hm… and… Yeah, you ran away when I and Luhan hyung were dared to make out. You didn’t seem very happy”, Sehun finished rambling, and Jongdae almost couldn’t breathe. Had he really been that obvious?

“That’s enough proof for me. And yeah, not counting all the times you’ve become all flustered when I speak to you and stuff. But, as I said. You like me, hyung.”

Jongdae’s head felt like a mess. Thoughts of _Why did I do that_ and _Fuck, I should’ve been more sneaky_ ran through his brain, and it didn’t make this situation any easier. He was close to mortified.

But then, Sehun had remembered all those little things. That must mean they had some kind of impact on him. Or he was just excellent at memorising things. Which wasn’t true, since he was one of the worst in the group at remembering lines. Uh.

Jongdae realised, he had to accept his fate. There was nothing he could say to deny this. He was a jealous piece of shit, he knew that by now, but he was also an honest person.

“Yes, I… I like you. I really like you”, he breathed out, and then, a little challenging:  
“What’re you gonna do about it?”

It was all barely audible, but Jongdae was sure Sehun would be able to hear because of how close they stood to each other at the moment.

Also thanks to their proximity, Jongdae could spot a streak of nervousness visible on Sehun’s face after his question.

“I… actually did something about it”, he whispered back, “but it didn’t work out. You… kinda refused to cooperate with my plan.”

Jongdae could almost swoon, this was all so surreal. Sehun was standing so close to him, centimetres away, cornering him against the wall, bending forward a tiny bit to whisper intimately to him. Somehow, he wasn’t really sure if he was awake anymore, or his mind was just making this up in one of those strange dreams he’d sometimes have. It was really so- Wait, what did Sehun just say?!

“It- The letters? It was you? I mean, was it _you_ who put those letters in my box?!”

Sehun nodded, and Jongdae felt his stomach tingling in an almost intense manner, as if someone was pointing one of those glitter-spreading mouse pointers that some internet dress-up games had in it. Not that he ever had played one of those games, but still. It was a valid metaphor, okay?

“But why did you-” Jongdae started, but then he realised something. Something very important. Something he definitely shouldn’t overlook. Something that felt pretty much life-changing.

“Wait. You. Y-you like me back then? 'Cause the letters, I mean, yeah, the letters.”

Jongdae didn’t even care about his totally awkward way of speaking, he was sure Sehun understood him anyway. He just really wanted Sehun to confirm what he’d supposedly written in those letters.

He did. Jongdae’s stomach felt as if he’d just jumped off the edge of a cliff when Sehun nodded. But, like, in a good way. It was thrilling, nerve-racking, but also pretty damn sensational.

“I do. I… think I like you, hyung. As I said in the letters. I’ve come to realise it recently. I really… _really_ like you.”

“Oh my god”, was all Jongdae seemed to be able to say at that moment.

“Yeah”, was all Sehun seemed to be able to reply.

It was silent between them for a little while, and then Jongdae’s brain decided it was time for him to say something really stupid. Obviously.

“You like guys?!” he uttered in a shocked manner, and immediately regretted it. Way to ruin a nice moment, yay. Sehun didn’t seem to mind much, though, since he only laughed a little.

“Well, I like you, so yeah”, he said, smiling amusedly.

“…Right.”

Another moment of silence passed between them, this one a lot more awkward than the previous one. Then, something dawned on Jongdae. Why didn’t he ask that before?

“Why couldn’t you just walk up and tell me instead of writing those letters and everything? I mean, I had no idea it was you who sent them. And what’s with the whole 'meet me under the tree’ thing?”

“Well… Uh. You weren’t supposed to figure out it was me. You were just supposed to do as the letter said and meet me up at the tree, but since you didn’t want to do that, I had to tell you directly instead. I just thought it’d be romantic to confess under a tree in the evening…” Sehun pouted disappointedly, and Jongdae smiled at the sight. It was adorable.

“Also, I really like to make you flustered, and you became like that when you read the letters. It’s cute”, he continued, and Jongdae was pretty sure that his heart was beating so loudly that even Sehun could hear it. Hear what effects he had on Jongdae. The fact that they were still standing so close to each other didn’t help at all. Sehun had at least dropped his hands from the wall, no longer completely cornering Jongdae anymore. But they were still so near each other, almost chest to chest. Jongdae could just reach out his hand and-

“Can I touch your hair?”

“What?”

“Your hair. Can I touch it?”

Sehun blushed, Sehun really blushed, and Jongdae felt like that embarrassing question totally was worth it.

“Y-yeah, sure, but why?”

“It just… looks so nice. Kinda fluffy. And brown. I’ve wanted to touch it ever since you dyed it”, Jongdae stated truthfully, and then lifted his hand to carefully run his fingers through the light brown mass of hair. It was soft, just like he’d imagined it. Soft and nice.

“Hyung… I wanted to know, um, what do you think about it? You never said anything after I dyed it, and I just… want to hear you opinion on it, I guess?” Sehun asked, a red colour still visible on his cheeks.

“I like it”, Jongdae answered while continuing to feel the strands of the other’s hair between his fingers. “It looks good on you. You look all prince-ly.”

“Nice. Thanks.”

Sehun smiled and Jongdae smiled back, lowering his hand. Then, he took a deep breath.

“I guess I have to ask this now, so we get it done”, he said, surprisingly not feeling very nervous at all. “Oh Sehun, will you be my boyfriend?”

Jongdae took Sehun’s hands in his, and could feel that they both were shaking a little. Sehun nodded.

“Yes”, he replied, looking Jongdae in the eyes briefly before looking down.

“Kiss me, then.”

Jongdae couldn’t believe he said that so confidently. He was being just as cheesy as Baekhyun right now. Maybe he just couldn’t wait to finally get to feel those lips against his.

Sehun looked up, then down again, then up another time, fixating his gaze at a point a little bit above Jongdae. He then bent down just a bit, licking his lips. It was very cute.

“Why are you so nervous? You’ve kissed before, you have nothing to be nervous of”, Jongdae said, swinging their hands back and forth, trying to lighten the mood and make Sehun less shaky.

“Yeah, but that was with Luhan hyung. That’s a different thing. I’m kinda used to it now. This… is something else.”

“You don’t want to? We don’t have to if you don’t-”

“No, no, I want to! I just… I’m not that good. That’s all.”

“Ah, but Luhan hyung said you were alright”, Jongdae recalled, then chuckled a little and made a grossed out expression. “Ew, I’m gonna kiss the same lips that’s kissed him! Wouldn’t that be like indirectly kissing Luhan?”

“Oh god, hyung, shut up”, Sehun said and shook his head, but Jongdae could see a tiny smile on his mouth (a mouth he really felt like kissing now). Sehun seemed to spot him looking at his lips again and leaned forward a little bit.

“Alright…” he muttered, and bent down some more. To close the distance between them, Jongdae had to stand on his tippy toes to reach the other, taller, boy. He felt excited, but unfortunately also a bit nervous. Actually, he was sweating like crazy. Gross.

“Wait”, he therefore mumbled just as their lips were about to meet, and loosened his hands from Sehun’s. After wiping his palms on his trousers he intertwined their fingers again, and this time, nothing could stop them from finally getting to kiss each other.

Jongdae’s insides were boiling when he felt Sehun’s lips against his. He was finally doing this, and it was better than any dream, any fantasy he’d ever had. The other boy’s lips were soft, slightly wet since Sehun had licked them out of nervousness before, and absolutely overwhelming. Jongdae felt as if all of his senses were being taken over by Sehun, he could touch him, hear him, see him, feel his scent, and now also actually taste him. It was a thrilling experience, and sadly it didn’t last for long.

Someone opened the door to the dressing room, almost violently, and the two of them automatically broke apart. However, it didn’t seem like they were fast enough.

“Guys, it’s only ten minutes until the next- Oh my god, Jongdae!!!” Luhan shouted excitedly, cutting himself off. Jongdae changed his mind about Baekhyun, maybe _Luhan_ was his enemy for life after all. Walking in on them like this, interrupting that very important kissing session they’d just started. He would probably run off and tell everyone about what he’d seen.

That’s actually _just_ what he did.

“Look at you! Oh my god, you actually hooked up with Sehun, I- I have to tell the others!” Luhan stated before dashing off, heading to their usual meeting place where their other classmates were waiting. Well. Jongdae probably deserved it.

“Maybe… we should go back now if it’s already ten minutes to seven”, Sehun said and Jongdae nodded before starting to laugh slightly.

“What is it?” Sehun asked, sounding a bit confused.

“I’m just happy. I finally got to kiss the prince”, Jongdae uttered and laughed again. Sehun smiled back.

“Does that make you the princess, then?”

“Sadly, no. I’m just a simple dwarf with a hopeless crush on the handsome prince”, Jongdae shook his head and looked down dramatically, and Sehun took his hand, holding it tightly while they made their way out of the room.

“Well, there has to be something special about that dwarf since the far-from-handsome prince would pick him over the princess any day.”

Jongdae smiled.

“That was incredibly smooth.”

“I know”, Sehun replied smugly, leading both of them back to where the others waited, still wearing that stupid, smug grin on his face when they reached their destination. He was adorable, and Jongdae also couldn’t keep himself from smiling, not even caring about his classmates’ hoots and whistles welcoming them.

  


(Baekhyun attacked Jongdae almost immediately, demanding to know what went down in that dressing room. Apparently, he hadn’t been looking for Jongdae at all, it was just something Luhan had come up with to get Jongdae to go backstage and meet Sehun, without suspecting anything. Sehun had been too nervous to go get Jongdae himself, so he sent Luhan instead. For some reason. Anyway, Baekhyun was thrilled to find out that Sehun had been the one who wrote the letters (“I told you it wasn’t me!”) and was, thankfully, happy for Jongdae. Like, genuinely happy. Maybe Baekhyun was alright, after all.)

  


As the last performance finally started, Jongdae felt a little bit nervy. It was probably because he saw this performance as more important than the other two, mainly since his family were in the audience. His legs were also still a bit shaky after his previous encounter with Sehun. His _boyfriend_. Jongdae couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his face at the thought.

“You awake? We’re up next!” Chanyeol said loudly while waving his hand in front of Jongdae’s face, making him jump a little and rush to find his place in the line of dwarfs.

“He’s in love”, Yixing said and Baekhyun snickered, giving the older a high-five. Jongdae just rolled his eyes.

  


Despite his nerves, Jongdae managed to act just as well as he’d acted during the previous performances (hopefully his parents were proud of him). Actually, everything went as it should. Except for one little detail at the end. At the last scene.

It wasn’t anything major, not something that affected the outcome of the performance. It affected Jongdae, though. In a positive way.

It happened when they reached the last scene, the infamous kiss scene. Sehun bent down while standing beside Luhan’s, or Snow White’s, death bed, aiming to kiss the other awake. All the people playing the dwarfs were also on stage, therefore a lot of them noticed what Sehun did just as he was about to press his lips against Luhan’s. He looked up straight at Jongdae, smiling slightly and giving him this indecipherable look before bending down additionally and-

He didn’t kiss Luhan. He just hovered with his lips above the other boy’s, without letting them touch. Then, when Luhan pretended to wake up, Sehun looked up at Jongdae again and flashed him another smile. For some reason, Jongdae felt incredibly touched. It was as if Sehun already was taking this whole boyfriend thing seriously, not wanting to kiss anyone else. Perhaps it was only to make Jongdae feel better. If that was the intention, Sehun had succeeded. Jongdae smiled back at Sehun, and in no time at all, the final performance was over.

It was as if a weight was lifted from Jongdae’s shoulders, no more anxiety about performing the play for a while. Though, he also felt a bit sad that this was over. They had worked so hard the entire semester, and those drama classes he’d had throughout the year had really been the highlight of his weeks. Now, the whole thing was done and over with.

When they received a big applause from the audience, they all joined hands, bowing. Conveniently, Jongdae stood next to Sehun and instantly put his hand in the other’s, seeing Sehun flash him a gorgeous smile at the action.

  


Jongdae felt as if it was the final scene of his own fairy tale, he reached his goal, he got the prince in the end. And what a fairy tale it had been. A strange one, sure. He had gone through so many obstacles on his way to reach his goal, he had done so many stupid, embarrassing things. Most of it out of jealousy. However, if he hadn’t done all that, the prince might’ve never noticed him, found out about his feelings. So he regretted nothing.

Feeling Sehun’s hand in his, seeing the other boy smile at him, Jongdae believed that it had been worth it. It had absolutely been worth it all.

  


~The End~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this chapter is a MESS, lol. but, the story is finished! did you like it? what didn't you like? tell me what you think! (i hate to be begging for comments so you absolutely don't have to, but i would be very happy)
> 
> (i managed to squeeze in my otp in it as well. why did i do that)
> 
> also, sorry for taking so long to update! i've been awfully busy lately, mainly with school but also with other things. hopefully the ending is satisfying enough to be worth the wait ;-;
> 
> (maybe i should mention that i've also been posting this on [aff](http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/932060/oh-my-prince-exo-ot12-sechen-chenhun))


	7. The extra chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, as you might or might not know this story is also on [aff](http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/932060/), and i asked the readers there if they were interested in an extra chapter from sehun's perspective, and i got lot of positive responses, so here it is!  
> it’s basically the story (or, a summary of it) retold from sehun’s perspective, mainly because i was afraid ppl wouldn’t understand his character and his motives that well from the original fic (which is in jongdae’s point of view and he’s somewhat oblivious tbh. or maybe sehun is just good at hiding his emotions). this was supposed to be pretty short but things happened and it turned out this long. hope you all don’t mind.  
> (it’s probably an unnecessary thing to point out, but you obviously have to read the other chapters of the fic before you read this one! idk who would want to read the extra chapter without reading the actual fic, but whatever. just to be on the safe side)  
> hope you’ll like it!

  


It all started that day at the beginning of the semester. That very first drama lesson, where the teacher announced what play they were going to work with, and they all decided which roles they wanted. Sehun didn’t exactly get to decide for himself though, since he was the only one left at the end, not having any other option than playing the prince. It was okay with him, actually, he didn’t really care much. As long as he got to act and participate in a play with all of his friends, he was alright with any role.

Of course, he felt a bit uncomfortable when he got to know about the kiss scene. More than a bit uncomfortable. Actually, his stomach turned when Luhan shouted out his realisation. Sehun didn’t know what to do, he was feeling kind of speechless. He hadn’t kissed anyone before, and now he had to because of the dang _play_. It would be his first time and it was with _Luhan_ , who was two years older and also a guy. Yes, he was fond of Luhan and looked up to him a lot, but he wasn’t too keen on _kissing_ him. And everyone would be watching them, too. Really, saying that he felt a bit uncomfortable was an understatement.

He initially wanted to do something about it, maybe playing the prince was a bad idea after all. Would the teacher be mad at him for asking to change roles with someone else? He decided to try, but nothing comprehensible came out of his mouth. It was too difficult, he was too taken aback by the situation to be able speak properly. Sehun was embarrassing himself, and it was incredibly frustrating. Therefore, he was hit by relief when a voice from behind him piped up, speaking in his place.

Kim Jongdae. It was a complete surprise to Sehun, he was almost shocked by the other’s action, but also overwhelmingly grateful. Someone understood him, someone cared. He just didn’t expect it to be Jongdae, out of all people.

They usually didn’t interact, he and Jongdae. Sehun didn’t know why, but they just didn’t. They had different friends and came from different classes; Jongdae was a year older, after all. Sehun just knew him as this tiny hyung who was good friends with most of the other, older guys in the drama class, and always had a huge ~~kinda adorable~~ smile on his face whenever they talked to each other. Oh, and the fact that he seemed pretty thrilled when he instructed Sehun and Jongin to call him hyung when they joined the group, as he wasn’t among the youngest anymore. So Sehun’s view of Jongdae wasn’t bad, at least.

Another thing that surprised Sehun was how passionate Jongdae seemed to be about helping him. It was as if _he_ felt personally attacked by their teacher’s decision as well, even though it wasn’t supposed to affect him at all. However, he still tried to convince the teacher to change the roles, and even attacked Chanyeol, which also surprised Sehun as he’d only seen the two as good buddies who wouldn’t lash out on each other like that.

Unfortunately, Jongdae only succeeded in creating a ruckus in the classroom, and Sehun had to accept his fate. It was okay, though, he would manage. It was only a tiny kiss in a play after all, nothing serious. And kissing Luhan felt a lot less awkward than having to kiss Jongin or Tao, for example, as they were both his close friends and not people he’d want to kiss even if someone would _pay_ him.

He had to thank Jongdae for his attempt to save him though, he really had to. Therefore Sehun rushed out of the door after the older when class was over, stopping him as he was about to leave. After Sehun had expressed his gratitude, Jongdae flashed him that wide ~~adorable~~ smile, and Sehun left the school building feeling immensely happy. For some reason. Really, the fact that he had to participate in that one kiss scene didn’t even bother him anymore. Strange.

  


That evening, Sehun couldn’t stop thinking about Jongdae. The thought of the huge smile he’d given Sehun, and Sehun only, made the his stomach feel somewhat warm. That… that wasn’t important though, what actually occupied Sehun’s mind the most was the reason behind Jongdae being so passionate about defending him during class. What could it be, what were his motives? Why was he trying so hard to change the roles? If it had been someone else, like Baekhyun for example, Jongdae would’ve just laughed at his misery instead of helping him, Sehun felt pretty sure about that. So why was he being like that with him?

Maybe he was reading into it too much, maybe Jongdae just wanted to be nice. He had stated that his reason was that he didn’t want anyone to feel pressured to do something they’re uncomfortable with, after all.

As Sehun fell asleep that night, he couldn’t wait until the next week and next lesson.

  


It felt like ages until their next drama class, but after a week it was finally time for it. Sehun felt the urge to talk to Jongdae, interact with him more, but he didn’t know what to talk about. It felt really awkward to just walk up to him and randomly start talking about something. He could do that with his close friends, but with Jongdae it would just be strange. So in the end, Sehun didn’t do anything. He felt a little bit like a coward.

That lesson, something strange happened again. As the kiss scene was approaching, Sehun was nervous. Obviously (that wasn’t the strange thing). So he walked as slowly as possible up to Luhan, trying to calm himself down. Upon reaching him, he asked the teacher if it was important to kiss during rehearsals, and Miss Hwang answered him that yes, it was important. That’s when the strange thing happened: Jongdae raised his hand, coming to his rescue for the second lesson in a row.

“Y’know… Why does Snow White have to be saved by a prince, anyway? Isn’t that pretty old-fashioned and enforces stereotypical gender roles?”

Sehun had no idea why Jongdae would care about the portrayal of gender in an old fairy tale, it was old after all and it was hard to do anything about it by now, they couldn’t change a classic. He realised that it was probably Jongdae’s excuse to get rid of the kiss scene, but why did he care so much? Was he actually doing this just to be nice?

Luhan voiced his agreement after that, which was understandable since he was actually _part of the kiss scene_ (unlike some other people). Unfortunately, the notion was taken less seriously as Tao started talking about his idea to add a fight scene between Snow White and her stepmother (Sehun had to try to not laugh out loud at that), and in the end, Jongdae again didn’t succeed. Maybe he would stop his attempts to help Sehun now.

  


Nope, apparently he wasn’t going to stop. During the next lesson Jongdae heard from Yixing that there’s no kiss in the original version of the fairy tale, and therefore tried to make them perform that version instead. Key word being tried, since he didn’t succeed this time either. A pity, really, he had looked so enthusiastic when he informed everyone about his discovery, and so disappointed when Miss Hwang told him they were sticking with the Disney version. Sehun might’ve even spotted him pouting a little. He didn’t understand how someone older than him could look so cute (okay, on second thought he could; Minseok was the oldest out of all of them and he was more adorable than the pet hamster Sehun had when he was in primary school). Luckily, Jongdae seemed alright at the end of the lesson as he joked around like he usually did, making Sehun smile.

When he was about to head home, Sehun saw Luhan drag away a flustered-looking Jongdae, from what he could hear they were practising together at Luhan’s place. It was completely normal, expected even since the two of them were good friends, but for some reason Sehun felt a little bit anxious. Wasn’t _he_ a better option for Luhan to practise with, and wasn’t Jongdae fond of _him_ since he was so passionate about helping him? Why would they choose each other instead of him? How close were they, even? For some reason, Sehun was a bit jealous. Of who, he didn’t know. He just felt that uncomfortable feeling in his gut when he saw the two leaving, Luhan’s arm hanging over Jongdae’s shoulders.

  


\---

  


As the weeks went by, their practise sessions became more serious. Which meant that Sehun had to properly kiss Luhan. It wasn’t really something he’d looked forward to, but he had to get it done and over with, he supposed.

Before starting, though, he got the chance to interact a bit with Jongdae. Yes, he actually had the guts to do so! And it even happened as they were changing clothes in the props storage.

Jongdae seemed to have dressed up fast, because Sehun was in the middle of changing when he spotted said boy emerging from behind a clothes rack. With his eyes completely fixed on Sehun. Woah.

The fact that Jongdae was observing him gave Sehun somewhat of a kick, a rush, and as a spur of the moment he gestured to Jongdae to come closer. He didn’t even know why, but he just felt kinda thrilled over Jongdae watching him like that. And he felt even more thrilled when he saw Jongdae’s reaction. He looked nervous, bashful even, as he made his way up to Sehun, who tried to hold back a smile ~~but probably failed~~.

What Sehun did next came as a complete surprise to both him and Jongdae (mostly to Jongdae, though). He asked Jongdae to hold his coat, and then turned around and switched shirts in front of the older. If it was in any other situation, Sehun would’ve been embarrassed over doing so, but at that moment he just felt confident. And - again - thrilled. He blamed that sudden kick of energy he’d gotten before. And also, maybe, his curiosity to see Jongdae’s reaction.

His face was definitely a shade redder, Sehun noticed when he turned around to face Jongdae again. That obviously didn’t have to mean anything, Sehun was sure that if someone did that to him he would react similarly. It was a strange action, after all.

  


Sehun was slightly nervous when it was time for the kiss scene. Just _slightly_. Somehow he’d ended up getting kinda used to the thought of kissing Luhan.

But he still wanted to do well, he had no prior experience after all. And since he was to do it on stage, being bad at kissing wouldn’t only embarrass him in front of Luhan, but also in front of everyone else. Including Jongdae.

Wait, what? Why was it so important to impress him all of a sudden? Well, Sehun did feel that he’d become a _bit_ closer to the older throughout the past couple of weeks, so he was trying hard to get them to a stage of being friends. Yeah, he definitely wanted to become friends with Jongdae. For real.

Sehun still felt his heart beat a tiny bit faster as he bent down in front of Luhan, he _was_ nervous after all. Alright. He had to collect himself. This was nothing, he could do this without any problems. He was just gonna take a deep breath, and then-

Darkness. Just as Sehun was about to let their lips meet. He cancelled his action as some of the others yelled (Luhan also shouted loudly, which startled him more than the actual blackout).

He didn’t think about it at first, but it was a convenient time for the power to go off. Especially since it took such a long time for them to get it to work again, so they ended up not doing the kiss scene. Very convenient. Sehun let that slide, though, it was probably a mere coincidence.

  


Except, it happened again the next lesson. Not the power going off, but something else that interrupted the kiss scene at the most important moment.

This time, Sehun started to get a bit suspicious. Because right after Luhan had received that phone call, he thought he saw Jongdae stuffing his cell phone down his pocket. What had he done with the cell phone during class, at that exact moment? They weren’t even allowed to use their phones during class. It didn’t feel like a coincidence anymore. It would also make sense for Jongdae to do it, as he had actively tried to get rid of the kiss scene before.

  


Sehun was almost one hundred percent sure that his suspicions were correct when something - or _someone_ \- cut the kiss scene off for the third lesson in a row. That someone being Jongdae. He had clearly ordered Chanyeol to do that prank (which was a pretty good prank, Sehun had to admit. It was basic but still had a funny outcome). But, seriously, _why_ was Jongdae so keen on interrupting that scene? Sehun was still feeling puzzled, and for some reason he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was somehow like a mystery he really wanted to solve.

  


And he did. Or, he might’ve figured it out during the lesson after that. That lesson, he and Luhan were pretty much forced to kiss, and out of all people it seemed to have upset Jongdae the most. He was noticeably grumpy, Sehun concluded after sneakily watching him for a while (only for curiosity, and desire to solve the mystery surrounding Jongdae, of course). Perhaps the older’s bad mood wasn’t because of the kiss scene, but with all the previous events considered, it probably was.

Oh yeah, the kiss scene. Right. It was… somewhat terrifying at first. Out of control. When his lips met Luhan’s, when they started kissing, Sehun didn’t really know when to stop. Luhan had been considerate enough to take control (as Sehun was, well, inexperienced), but Sehun was the one who was supposed to break the kiss after a while, and he felt unsure. Therefore, the actual kiss took a bit longer than it probably was supposed to. Not that most of the others seemed to mind, though.

Sehun did feel a bit proud afterwards, he was one experience richer now, after all. Even though it was somewhat overwhelming.

But what was more overwhelming was the realisation Sehun had after that.

As he looked up from having kissed Luhan he caught Jongdae’s reaction to it all. He looked pretty miserable. And when most of the others gathered around Sehun and Luhan, asking them questions, he just stood a bit away from them, not even joining the others when they clapped. When Sehun glanced over at him Jongdae caught his gaze and immediately looked away. It was in that moment everything was made clear.

Jongdae liked him. Or, well, he _liked_ him. That had to be it. Sehun felt his heart beat a bit faster, and he swallowed. All the passion Jongdae had put into his attempts to get someone else to play the prince, the different ways he’d tried to get rid of the kiss scene, his flustered reactions whenever Sehun interacted with him, it all made sense. Holy shit.

Of course, he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but it felt like the most logical reason. So Sehun was maybe... ninety percent sure. And he really didn’t know what to do with this information.

He first of all felt very flattered that someone liked him enough to do all these things, and especially when that person was Jongdae, who was a pretty amazing guy (in Sehun’s opinion). And he definitely didn’t have anything against people who happened to like folks of the same sex, so that didn’t bother him. What bothered him was the fact that he now felt unsure about what to do. He couldn’t really say he had the same kinds of feelings for Jongdae… He liked him and all, Jongdae was nice and talented and adorable and everything, but… well. Sehun didn’t know. He hadn’t really been romantically interested in anyone before either, so he felt incredibly unsure.

He decided to just let it be for the moment, as Jongdae hadn’t really tried to make a move on him or anything (if he did that, Sehun wouldn’t know what to do). The situation right now was alright. He could just ignore Jongdae’s crush on him and go on with his daily life until he’ll figure out his feelings about this.

  


\---

  


That one lesson when Luhan was ill was by far one of the most interesting lessons of the whole semester.

Sehun’s initial reaction to Jongdae awkwardly getting chosen as Luhan’s substitute was to smile. The way Jongdae looked a tiny bit conflicted and nervous over the situation was for some reason very cute. Sehun couldn’t stop the happy expression from appearing on his face.

That was, until he realised why Jongdae had decided to take Luhan’s role during the lesson. Sehun suddenly got this fluttering feeling in his stomach and chest at the thought of Jongdae… possibly choosing it to be able to kiss him. Yeah. It was flattering (really, what was it about him that made Jongdae want to kiss him???) but incredibly nerve-racking. Sehun didn’t know what to do. He could try to practise like he usually did, but… when the kiss scene was approaching it felt difficult to do so.

It was obvious that Jongdae was nervous. No kidding. He had been nervous throughout their whole rehearsal (not that Sehun had observed him the whole time - okay maybe he had) but now it was even more noticeable than before. He fidgeted a bit while he lay on the table, and when Sehun came closer he saw the apparent shade of pink colouring Jongdae’s cheeks. It was quite adorable, Sehun automatically smiled. Jongdae looked up at him just as he did it, and quickly averted his eyes. Why was that guy even so nervous, his only task was to lay down on the table. It was Sehun who had to do all the work.

Oh, right. The kissing. He should get to it. Sehun felt his heart beat louder and louder as he bent down. Or maybe it was because the sound of his heart was the only thing he could focus on at the moment. Thinking about anything else, Jongdae-related, was too much.

He was pretty much forced to think about Jongdae when he was centimetres from the older’s face, immersed in the land of long eyelashes and flawlessly sculpted cheekbones. And a pair of slightly parted, bowed lips. Holy shit, Jongdae was pretty. Especially up close, where Sehun could view his face in detail. This was going to be even more difficult now, since Sehun’s heart started to beat faster and his face felt hopelessly hot. He was probably gonna start to sweat like an idiot soon too, he really had to hurry up and get on with it.

Jongdae had closed his eyes and looked as ready as he could get (or something), so Sehun had no excuse to keep stalling. He mumbled an "okay” to himself to calm his heart down, and then moved his face even closer to Jongdae’s-

“Ahem, you know that you two don’t have to kiss if you don’t want to, right?”

Sehun immediately stood up straight again as he felt a wave of relief hit him. He didn’t have to do it. He didn’t have to go through the trial of kissing those pretty, inviting lips- wait, what was he thinking?! Sehun’s heart was still beating loudly in his chest and he looked around, trying to calm it down.

Jongdae was rising up from the table but Sehun couldn’t bring himself to look at him. He felt as if he’d disappointed the other, or something. That he wasn’t able to kiss him, because he was too much of a nervous wreck. But then again, pulling away was the natural reaction, right? Jongdae wouldn’t hold a grudge against him for that.

A couple of his classmates were shouting loudly, expressing different kinds of emotions. Some of them were surprised by the whole thing, some were disappointed that they didn’t kiss and some seemed more relieved. Most of them were highly amused, though. Sehun would’ve joined them, not being someone who had a problem with laughing at himself, but he couldn’t do that. This situation didn’t feel very silly. Images of Jongdae’s lips and thoughts of things he could’ve and shouldn’t have done made him feel almost frustrated.

  


Sehun felt like he’d let Jongdae down when he hadn’t kissed him, so he wanted to do something to make it up to him. Or, well, that was his excuse to go ~~tease~~ interact with Jongdae the next lesson. He’d discovered that he very much enjoyed his newfound power of being able to make Jongdae flustered. It was just something about Jongdae’s flushed face and apparent nervousness and the fact that it was _Sehun_ who was the cause for it. A something that really captivated Sehun.

Therefore, Sehun decided to wait until most of the others had left the props storage, and then walked over to the place behind the clothes rack where Jongdae usually changed. Jongdae wasn’t entirely done changing so he was noticeably startled when Sehun appeared, seemingly out of nowhere (Sehun couldn’t help but find it a bit amusing).

Sehun managed to make Jongdae tie his cravat, not mentioning the fact that he could probably tie it all by himself by now. It didn’t really go as Sehun had expected though, since Jongdae actually tied it very well, without any troubles whatsoever. Sehun was happy with how the cravat looked, sure, but his main goal had been to make Jongdae all embarrassed and cute. So after they were done, Sehun turned to face Jongdae, scanning his face intently. He couldn’t find anything off on that ~~flawless~~ face, so he decided to just make something up.

“Hyung, you have something… here”, he uttered, and he could spot confusion on the older’s face. After intentionally telling Jongdae that his attempt at removing that something had been unsuccessful, Sehun ended up touching Jongdae’s face, his lips. The edge of those lips, right at the place where they kind of turned upwards. He couldn’t believe he had the guts to do that, but apparently he had. It was all totally worth it, he believed, when he saw Jongdae trying to keep calm afterwards. His embarrassed reaction was really charming, Sehun had to admit.

  


If Sehun had been 90 percent sure that Jongdae liked him before the lesson started, he was now 99% sure of it. Because of the thing that happened at the end of their lesson.

He and Luhan were dared to make out, and after Luhan had stated his conditions for it they were pretty much ready to go. Sehun didn’t feel too comfortable at first. He had kissed Luhan before, but that was kind of as far as he’d go. Making out felt a bit extreme and not something he was willing to do with someone he didn’t have feelings for, not even if he was given free ice cream and bubble tea after school.

But his brain was soon occupied with other thoughts. This was basically _prime time_ to find out if his suspicions about Jongdae liking him were correct.

When Luhan grabbed his collar to pull him closer, all Sehun could think about was how Jongdae would react. Would he just look a bit heart-broken and frown, or would he actually attempt to stop their kiss? If it was the latter, would he come up with something clever like he’d done before or was he by now desperate enough to simply shout at them to stop? Maybe he would just stand there, poker-faced, masking his emotions. Or, perhaps, Sehun had been wrong about everything and Jongdae wouldn’t be affected at all because he didn’t have any feelings for him.

Sehun observed him right before leaning into the kiss, and at first Jongdae didn’t look that different than usual. Then he started to look a tiny bit distressed, and after that Sehun wasn’t able to watch him anymore as Luhan came close enough for the two of them to start kissing. And not long after they’d started, Jongdae finally did something that caught Sehun’s interest.

He first mumbled something inaudible and then stormed off. It wasn’t at all what Sehun had expected, and it seemed like he wasn’t the only one who was surprised. Chanyeol shouted after him in confusion and Luhan instantly broke the kiss, gaze following Jongdae’s leaving figure. What made Sehun even more confused was when Luhan then went after him, leaving Sehun and the others on stage while he exited the classroom not too long after Jongdae had done the same thing.

“Uh. Okay? What was that about?” Chanyeol voiced his (and probably most of the others) thoughts out loud. Sehun shrugged.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s better if we leave them to themselves”, he said even though he almost died of curiosity of getting to know what they were talking about. And the fluttering in his belly from earlier that day wouldn’t stop either, as he was now almost a hundred percent sure that Jongdae liked him. For real.

  


Sehun couldn’t sleep that night. It didn’t matter how hard he tried to think about something else, his thoughts would just bounce back to Jongdae. And the fact that he liked him. Holy shit, Jongdae liked him. Kim Jongdae from Sehun’s drama class had a crush on him. Un-fricking-believable.

Sehun rolled around, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in, twisting his blanket around him. He felt hot and decided to just get rid of the blanket instead, summer was approaching after all and having his window open didn’t do anything to change the temperature of his room. Did Jongdae have the same problem? He hadn’t ever visited Jongdae’s house, maybe Jongdae had a really nice air-conditioned room and-

Sehun rolled around again, settling on lying on his back. He put his hands up in the air on front of him, trying to distinguish the shapes of his fingers from the darkness of the room. He sighed when he couldn’t keep focusing on it, his state of mind could only be described as one word: Jongdae.

The thing was, that it was a completely new situation to Sehun. He didn’t know what to do. He had zero experience, he hadn’t ever had someone crushing on him (to his knowledge, at least). The mere thought of someone liking him in a romantic way made his chest tingle. And the fact that this someone was Jongdae was terrifyingly amazing.

Sehun realised that Jongdae was different. Like, if it was someone else who liked him, Chanyeol for example, Sehun wouldn’t at all be as thrilled. He would probably mostly feel bothered. But it was _Jongdae_ who liked him, and that filled him with an extreme amount of happiness.

Jongdae was such a kind, funny, clever and caring person who was great at most subjects in school, a talented actor and from what Sehun had heard he was also a terrific singer. Not to mention how incredibly good-looking he was. And how cute he acted when flustered. Additionally, Jongdae was humble enough to not think all those things about himself. Did he even know how amazing he was? Sehun pondered over that for a while.

He finally fell asleep at around three at night, and that unfortunately didn’t last for long. He had a dream that made him wake up a lot earlier than he should. Sehun had read somewhere that if you think about something before you fall asleep, there’s a high chance of you dreaming about the same thing. And, go figure, he dreamed about Jongdae.

In the dream he found himself in Luhan’s shoes, playing the princess. However, the prince leaning down to kiss him wasn’t a second version of himself; it was Jongdae. When dream-Sehun saw that he immediately panicked and suddenly he was teleported to the props storage, without any explanation whatsoever (but since when did dreams make sense, really). He noticed that he was wearing his prince costume, and Jongdae was in there too. When he saw Sehun he flashed him that huge, charming smile.

“What was it that you wanted to tell me?” dream-Jongdae said and the dream version of himself fidgeted for a couple of seconds before saying:

“Well, I… I think I’m in love with you.”

Dream-Jongdae slowly walked up to him with an expression of pure sunshine, while saying something along the lines of:

“Oh, my prince. You won’t believe how happy that makes me.”

Before dream-Sehun could utter another word, Jongdae had him against the wall and, well… kissed him. Right after that, Sehun - the real Sehun - woke up. He was sweating even though he had slept without his blanket.

Jongdae had kissed him in the dream, oh, alright. It was expected, maybe, but still. It felt kinda real, which was a bit scary. Sehun brought his fingers up to his lips. It had felt… nice. He wouldn’t mind having more dreams when that happened.

What bothered him was the fact that he had told Jongdae he loved him in the dream. What was that all about? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Because Jongdae was the one who liked _him_ , not-

Sehun’s heart was pounding but before he could elaborate on that thought he fell asleep again.

  


\---

  


Not long before the last class of rehearsals Sehun dyed his hair. It wasn’t a ground-breaking thing, he just wanted a change and after telling his friends about his idea they wouldn’t stop bothering him until he actually did it. So, the last drama class before the performances Sehun walked in with his newly dyed brown hair.

He was a bit worried about what the others would think, or more specifically, what Jongdae would think. But they seemed to like it. He had to agree with them, it suited his role in the play a lot. All of them had gathered around him, complimenting him, and the attention made him feel a bit embarrassed.

The one he actually _wanted_ attention from, however, stood a bit away from the others. Why? Sehun thought (or rather, hoped) that Jongdae would be the first one to compliment him, but nope. What if he didn’t like it? Holy shit, what if Sehun had ruined all his chances to date Jongdae just because he dyed his hair?? It couldn’t be that serious, right…?

Wait, did he just… Did he just imply that he wanted date Jongdae…? Oh no. He totally did. He couldn’t even deny it. Well, he had kinda figured out by now that he… might… return Jongdae’s feelings? He had another dream after that one from before, a similar dream, except that he was the one kissing Jongdae in it. And it was something he’d thought about a lot.

Sehun was totally alright with the idea of kissing Jongdae. He wanted to, even. Imagine how happy that’d make Jongdae. Sehun would be happy too, he believed. He would very much like to do it.

However, things seemed to be going in the wrong direction now. Maybe he should do something about it.

  


On the day of the performances, Sehun was very nervous. As expected. He was always nervous before performances, it was only natural. But somehow he felt even more anxious about this one. Maybe it was because of that dreaded kiss scene. It felt as if it was the source of all of Sehun’s problems.

There was an additional thing that made Sehun as nervous as he was. He’d decided to maybe, uh, make a move. On Jongdae. Because by now he was pretty sure he’d like a relationship with the other, and he really had to do something before it was too late.

Sehun had come up with the plan to write a letter to Jongdae, telling him to meet up at the tree outside the building, and put it in his box after the first performance. It felt like a good plan, it would make Jongdae flustered and make him wonder who the person behind the letter was, and he would also be prepared for someone confessing to him. Sehun wasn’t too keen on just saying it out of the blue, he’d rather confess in a more meaningful way (besides, he was pretty sure Jongdae liked romantic stuff like that. Or at least he hoped so).

Even though Sehun had a clear plan he was still awfully nervous. The incident during their final rehearsal therefore felt like it was completely his fault. See, he wasn’t the one who dropped the framed glass but he was definitely the one who triggered it. It was horrible. Really damn horrible.

At that point, Sehun’s nerves got the best of him and after trying to clean up all the smashed glass from the floor, he ran towards the restroom in panic, locking himself up. If he was about to cry he’d at least do it where no one could see him.

Jongdae managed to calm him down. It was incredible how his appearance just made Sehun swallow his urge to cry, and relax. He doubted it would be the same with anyone else. There was just something about Jongdae’s soothing words combined with his apparent dorkiness around Sehun, they were probably Sehun’s favourite sides of Jongdae. The caring hyung side, and the flustered and embarrassed side. His reaction when Sehun truthfully told him that the prince role would fit him perfectly was too adorable. And his words when Sehun was worried about Luhan being mad at him.

Even though Jongdae was visibly jealous, he was still an honest person. So he told Sehun not to worry about Luhan, that Luhan liked him no matter what. Stuff that could probably ruin his chances with Sehun if Sehun had liked Luhan in _that_ way.

Which was something Jongdae apparently couldn’t help but ask.

“Do… do you like Luhan hyung?”

It surprised Sehun, it actually did. He thought Jongdae would try to be at least a little bit more subtle than that. It was almost comedic, the fact that he actually asked that (and afterwards instantly looked like he regretted it). After confirming that Jongdae meant it in a romantic way, Sehun couldn’t hold back his laughter.

“No, I don’t. Why would you even think that?” he answered. It was honestly too absurd. When had he ever seemed as if he had a crush on Luhan?

There was a smile on his face when Jongdae explained that they were kissing and all, and that made him think they might like each other. Sehun couldn’t believe that this was a thing that had bothered Jongdae for so long. Good thing he cleared it up.

Sehun did consider confessing at that moment, since it felt like a perfect one. They were kind of touching the subject in their conversation. Besides, Jongdae had been so nice. Maybe he shouldn’t wait until the evening.

But then, his plan felt like the better alternative. It was more romantic. And he would really like to see Jongdae’s reaction to getting that letter. So Sehun settled on taking Jongdae’s hand, walking together back to the rest of the guys preparing for the first performance.

  


Which went really well, a lot better than expected. Sehun was happy with his acting, even though his role wasn’t that important. Or well, it was important, he was the one reviving Snow White after all, but he didn’t have a lot of appearances on stage. The only scenes he was in were in the beginning and at the end of the play. Therefore he had a big gap in the middle of it where the only thing he could do was to wait backstage.

It was during that time he went and put the letter in Jongdae’s box. It was when a scene with both Snow White and all the dwarfs was taking place, so most of the others were on stage. Sehun sneaked out to the hall and he was sure that nobody noticed him.

  


After the audience had left they went to see what they’d received in their boxes. Sehun found a couple of notes in his, some with small drawings of a crown or a handsome cartoon prince, others with compliments. They made him happy, they really did, but the way his heart was beating faster and faster wasn’t because of them.

Jongdae had looked in his box, and by the looks of it also found Sehun’s letter. His eyes were wide as he read through the contents, mouth opening a tiny bit as if he mumbled the text out loud to himself. With rosy cheeks he then searched around the room with his gaze. After settling on Baekhyun, he walked up to him with the letter in his hand. No, no, no! Why was Jongdae showing Baekhyun that letter? It was a private letter for _Jongdae_ , and Jongdae alone! Sehun felt a bit frustrated, this wasn’t going his way.

Apparently Jongdae thought it was all a prank, and that Baekhyun was the one behind it. Sehun wanted to tell him how wrong he was, but then he’d automatically reveal himself. It kinda sucked. Just because Jongdae believed it was a joke, he wouldn’t go meet Sehun under that tree. Sehun had to think up another plan.

  


During the break, he wrote another letter and put it in Jongdae’s box. He knew that the person behind the letters would come off as quite persistent, coming to two of the performances and sending Jongdae these letters twice, but whatever. Hopefully he seemed dedicated and passionate. Sehun really wondered how Jongdae would react to this letter.

  


When the second performance was over they checked their boxes again, and Sehun intently watched Jongdae while he searched through his. He spotted him finally discovering the letter, but what Sehun also saw was Baekhyun coming up behind him. God damn it. This didn’t look good.

“Ooh, isn’t this from the same person as before?” Baekhyun shouted out, catching everyone’s attention and totally embarrassing Jongdae. The two of them whispered amongst themselves a little, Jongdae tried to get the letter back but failed, and Baekhyun started reading it. Again, loud enough for all of them to hear. Jongdae looked as if he was ready to die.

Sehun felt equally as embarrassed, but he tried not to show it. He hoped nobody would suspect it was him, even though he’d made it a bit more obvious this time since he’d addressed Jongdae as “hyung” in the letter.

He could hear some of the others start to discuss the letter, some of them laughed, but Jongdae was quiet. He certainly didn’t seem to have the time of his life. After clearing his throat he spoke up, still looking down at the floor.

“Can… Can the person who wrote this just stop? What have I ever done to you to make you wanna humiliate me so much? Seriously, who is it?”

He sounded almost emotional and Sehun felt so bad about writing that letter. He really should’ve confessed to Jongdae when they had that conversation in the dressing room, instead of doing this. It was obvious Jongdae didn’t believe that someone liked him, he just thought it was a prank. Sehun sighed, this was useless. He hadn’t come anywhere in his attempts to confess to Jongdae, he’d only made things worse. This really sucked.

  


When they went on break Jongdae left to sit with Yixing, and Sehun just stood there in the hall, not knowing what to do. He supposed he should try to confess to Jongdae properly, but… If Jongdae got to know that he was the one who wrote those letters, would he be mad at him then? Would he reject him? Sehun felt incredibly worried and that didn’t make things easier for him.

All of a sudden, he felt a knock on his shoulder.

“Sehunnie?”

It was Luhan, and Sehun turned around to be met with bright yellow hair and a huge grin. Before Sehun had the chance to say anything, Luhan started talking again.

“You and I need to talk about something. Right now”, he then looked around, “and I don’t think you want anyone to overhear it, so let’s go somewhere more private.”

What was this all about? Sehun had his suspicions but, well, all he could do was to listen to Luhan and take them to a place where the others wouldn’t be able to hear them. So they ended up in one of the dressing rooms, the same room where he and Jongdae had talked earlier that day.

“So,” Luhan started before he had even sat down, clearly not wanting to waste time, “you wrote those letters Jongdae received, right?”

Sehun nodded hesitantly, he was too taken aback to say anything. It was surprising how Luhan had figured that out, and also somewhat embarrassing. But since Luhan already seemed to be sure about his theory it was useless to deny it.

Luhan grinned even wider.

“Thought so. Seems like things didn’t really go your way, though. I thought that maybe I could help you”, he said and Sehun lifted an eyebrow. What could Luhan do in this situation, and more importantly, why did he want to help Sehun?

Before Sehun could ask that question, Luhan answered it. It was as if he knew what Sehun was thinking, it was kinda scary.

“Ah, you’re probably wondering why I want to do this. Well, you see, Jongdae really likes you as well. A lot. And he’s been feeling kinda miserable because he thinks you don’t return his feelings. If you actually confessed to him, it would make him so happy… aw, you don’t understand how happy that’d make him.”

This wasn’t really news to Sehun, but his heart still started beating like crazy when Luhan told him that Jongdae liked him. It was like… a confirmation. Or something.

“Yeah, I’ve… noticed. He hasn’t really tried to be very subtle about it”, Sehun said truthfully. Luhan looked at him incredulously.

“Well, what are you waiting for then?! If you already know he likes you, what’s there to worry about?”

Sehun shook his head.

“I… I don’t know, but… I think he’s mad… Because of the letters. It was a really stupid idea, I shouldn’t have written them. I just wanted to confess in a meaningful way, and make him excited about it. I didn’t know it would turn out like this.”

“I don’t understand how that’s stopping you. He won’t be mad if he finds out that it was _you_ who wrote them, that’s how head over heels he is for you. Don’t tell him I told you this, but, do you know what he did after we were dared to make out?”

Sehun was a little bit surprised by the question.

“Yeah, he ran out of the classroom… And you ran after him-”

“He cried. He was so over this whole kiss thing, and he was afraid that you and I liked each other. I don’t want him to feel that way anymore, I’m so relieved you like him back, you have no idea. But you should really go tell him.”

Sehun felt kinda shocked. Jongdae… cried? Because of him? Or, well, because of the whole thing about he and Luhan kissing each other, and how he didn’t think Sehun liked him back, but yeah… If what Luhan had said was true, then Sehun didn’t really worry that much about Jongdae rejecting him because of those dumb letters. He seemed to like him too much for his own good. (Sehun could relate.)

“Um… I’ll confess. I’ll do it. It’s just that… how? Should I just walk up to him and tell him?”

“Yeah, pretty much. But be more assertive! Tell him that you know how he feels. Don’t even mention your own feelings at first, just state the facts. See how he reacts. Oh! And corner him against the wall or something. Yeah, he’ll completely melt into your arms at that, that’s how in love he is.”

“I don’t - what??” Sehun felt his cheeks burning. Why was Luhan saying stuff like this?! This was so embarrassing. He cleared his throat.

“I… is that really a good idea?”

“Yeah, trust me, it is. Just do as I said!” Luhan persisted. Sehun couldn’t do that… could he? Well, he could at least try. It would be awkward if he failed but, well. Jongdae would (hopefully) like him anyway.

“Hyung… can you go get him for me?”

“What, why?”

“I’m too… nervous to go by myself. It’ll be embarrassing and he’ll know what’s gonna happen”, Sehun shrugged. “Can’t you tell him to come here, but not mention anything about me?”

“Well… okay? Sure.” Luhan stood up, walking towards the door. “Don’t take too long in here though, and remember that you need to be in a… performable condition when you’re done”, he said while leaving, winking greasily at Sehun.

“Oh my god, just go”, Sehun replied, feeling humiliated by Luhan’s implications.

  


While waiting for Jongdae to arrive, Sehun went through the plan in his head. It was a difficult task Luhan had given him, but okay. He was gonna try.

It didn’t take long until he heard footsteps outside the dressing room, so he immediately left to check if it was Jongdae.

Yup, Jongdae was there, looking around for something. Alright.

“Ah, Jongdae hyung! You’re… here. I was looking for you”, Sehun said and Jongdae looked startled, like he didn’t expect Sehun to be there. But that was the plan, so, things seemed to be going well so far.

“I… have to talk to you”, Sehun mumbled, a bit more silently than he had intended to, but he was nervous. He grabbed Jongdae by the arm and led him into the dressing room, Jongdae just following without uttering a word.

“Um, sorry, but Baekhyun… he was looking for me, I think. So… yeah. Maybe I should go-” Jongdae started when they were both standing inside the small room. Sehun was taken by surprise, what about Baekhyun? What did _he_ have to do with this??

Then he realised that it was probably Luhan’s lie to get Jongdae here. Alright. Breathe. Things were still going according to plan.

"Baek-? Oh, no, no, that can wait! I really need to talk to you. Now.”

He was probably visibly nervous, but he took a deep breath and slowly walked towards Jongdae. Okay. Determination. Have some confidence, _show_ some confidence. He knew Jongdae liked him, so he had nothing to worry about.

It wasn’t until he had put his hands on the wall on both sides of Jongdae, that Sehun noticed Jongdae’s reaction. He was trembling… and his cheeks were coloured with a pretty shade of red. His facial expression was like a mix between confusion and anticipation. It gave Sehun some more confidence, and he could utter the following without any signs of shakiness in his voice:

"You like me.”

At that, Jongdae just kinda… blanked. His eyes were wider than usual, and he stared at nothing. He didn’t even say anything, didn’t make a sound. No reaction.

…Holy shit, he broke Jongdae.

Sehun panicked a little in his head, what should he do, this is not what he’d expected. Well, what he could try to do was… repeat his statement. Maybe Jongdae would react if he heard it another time, perhaps he just needed some time to take it in.

It worked, thankfully. Jongdae snapped out of it, but despite that couldn’t seem to collect himself. He looked everywhere except at Sehun when he finally came up with something to say.

“I uh, I like… what? I mean- yes? W-wait, no! Or-”

Sehun couldn’t help but smile in the middle of this nerve-racking experience. Jongdae was too cute.

“You’re very obvious, you know”, he said, and then started going through all the things that made him suspect that Jongdae liked him. All the things Jongdae had done out of jealousy throughout the semester. As he did so, Jongdae looked more and more embarrassed, and when he was done, the older seemed to be deep in thoughts. It was hard to read on his face what he was thinking, even though they were standing so close to each other.

“Yes, I… I like you. I really like you”, he finally uttered, and Sehun felt as if fireworks were going off in his body. Jongdae admitted it, _Jongdae admitted it_ , it was true, he liked him. Kim Jongdae! Liked!! Oh Sehun!!! Sehun was almost too into celebrating the fact to hear what Jongdae said next. Almost.

“What’re you gonna do about it?”

Jongdae suddenly sounded very confident, and looked up at him expectantly. Shit. What _was_ he gonna do about it? Should he mention the letters, or…?

Jongdae’s gaze was burning him and Sehun decided, alright, let’s just reveal himself as the idiot behind the letters.

“I… actually did something about it”, he bent forward to whisper, "but it didn’t work out. You… kinda refused to cooperate with my plan.”

Would Jongdae understand his hints? It was quiet for a little while, then Jongdae finally said something.

“It- The letters? It was you? I mean, was it _you_ who put those letters in my box?!”

He was still being flustered, that was for sure. He also seemed very surprised. Sehun nodded, glad that Jongdae had caught on, at least.

Jongdae then attempted to ask about something else, but stopped himself. His facial expression said everything. He had understood.

Sehun realised that he had balled his hands into fists out of nervousness, and when he let them relax he saw that there were small marks from where his nails had dug into his palms. Okay. He needed to take a deep breath, relax.

"Wait. You. Y-you like me back then? ‘Cause the letters, I mean, yeah, the letters.”

Yup, Jongdae had definitely caught on. He wasn’t mad, Sehun realised with relief. He was instead somewhat… surprised. Sehun thought he’d been kinda obvious with the letters, but maybe not. After all, Jongdae had thought it was a prank by someone else.

Sehun nodded as a reply, and took yet another deep breath, preparing himself for what he was about to say.

"I do. I… think I like you, hyung. As I said in the letters. I’ve come to realise it recently. I really… _really_ like you.”

Jongdae gaped at him.

”Oh my god.”

“Yeah.”

  


After a while of (awkward)(but lovely) talking, and some hair petting (Jongdae!! had complimented!! his hair!!!! Sehun had been so worried about him not liking it, this was such a relief), Jongdae asked something very important.

“Oh Sehun, will you be my boyfriend?”

Sehun had no idea if it was important to say it in such an… official way (they’re weren’t getting married or anything… oh god, just the thought made Sehun’s face hot) but it was an important question nonetheless. And there was only one answer for it.

“Yes”, he replied, trying to look Jongdae in the eyes but failed after like half a second.

“Kiss me, then.”

Holy shit. Well, how the roles had reversed. One wouldn’t believe how Sehun had cornered Jongdae against the wall before with the way the older took control of the situation right now. He seemed so confident. With reason, probably. Sure, Sehun had kissed Luhan a couple of times in the play, but he still felt like Jongdae was about 100% more experienced at this than he was.

He couldn’t look Jongdae in the eyes, and he was shaking a little. He still attempted to bend down a bit though, to make it easier for the short Jongdae to reach him.

Sehun then swallowed anxiously. He wanted to kiss Jongdae, he did, but …damn. He was incredibly nervous. There was a big risk that he’d disappoint Jongdae with his crappy kissing skills. But alright. He was gonna do this.

Jongdae seemed to sense his nervousness and actually managed to calm him down (for the second time that day!). So Sehun bent down a bit more, focused on Jongdae’s lips, the shape of them, the beautiful curves at the edges.

“Alright…” he mumbled to reassure himself that it would, in fact, be alright. Then, their lips finally met.

It was more than alright. Alright was an understatement. Sehun felt as if his heart was going to jump out of his chest, it was so surreal. It was different from Luhan, too, because kissing Luhan sure didn’t make him feel like this. Woah.

They had both tilted their heads a little to not make their noses meet, and they stood so close to each other, their hands were interlocked, their lips fit so perfectly together, Sehun could just explode. It was better than in the dreams he’d had, even.

Jongdae tilted his head down a little bit, catching Sehun’s lower lip between his, and-

He couldn’t continue doing what it was that he was about to do, because _of course_ Luhan thought it was a great moment to enter the room.

“Guys, it’s only ten minutes until the next- Oh my god, Jongdae!!!”

Why was he even so surprised, didn’t he expect something like this? Okay, maybe he hadn’t thought he would walk in on them pretty much making out. Heck, Sehun hadn’t expected to do this either. It was nice, though. Bad thing Luhan interrupted it. Jongdae looked a bit irritated too, Sehun noticed.

After Luhan ran away to tell the others, Jongdae surprised Sehun by laughing.

"What is it?” he had to ask, hadn’t Jongdae looked kinda annoyed a minute ago?

“I’m just happy. I finally got to kiss the prince”, Jongdae replied and snickered again. Ah, it was just that. Sehun felt a warm feeling in his stomach, this made him immensely happy.

"Does that make you the princess, then?” Sehun asked, playing along.

“Sadly, no. I’m just a simple dwarf with a hopeless crush on the handsome prince”, Jongdae muttered, utilising his acting skills. This was too flattering, seriously. Sehun didn’t deserve it.

"Well, there has to be something special about that dwarf since the far-from-handsome prince would pick him over the princess any day”, he said truthfully, taking Jongdae’s hand. If Jongdae was one of the dwarfs, then, well, people had to accept that the prince was in love with a dwarf instead of the princess.

“That was incredibly smooth.”

“I know”, Sehun replied, happy over having made Jongdae smile.

  


Sehun knew that the last performance was to start soon, but there was just one thing he had to do. And it was very important. Urgent, even. While they were getting ready, Sehun looked around. Where was Luhan when you needed him?

When Sehun finally found Luhan, the older was sitting in front of a mirror, getting makeup retouches by Miss Hwang. So he had to wait. He couldn’t have their teacher overhearing this.

It wasn’t at all long until the performance was starting when Luhan was done and Sehun could finally talk to him, so he had to be fast. Get to the point.

“Hey, hyung, I need to-”

“Ah, Sehunnie! I’m so happy for you and Jongdae! You did as I told you, right? Although it seemed like he was the assertive one when I opened the door…”

“I… tried. I ended up telling him my feelings, at least.”

“Yeah, you did, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have caught you two _making out_ …”

“We weren’t making out! We were just kissing!” Sehun exclaimed, feeling embarrassed when he noticed the some of the others in the room turning their heads towards him.

Luhan snickered.

“Whatever, hyung, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about”, Sehun said, realising he only had a short time to get his message across.

“I need you to… Well, there’s a thing I want to do. Or rather, not do.”

Luhan looked back at him with interest.

“It’s just… You supported me and Jongdae hyung, right? I want to do this for him. Because he’s been dreading that kiss scene for the whole semester, and… could we not do it? I mean, I could lean down and stuff to make it seem like I’m kissing you, but I’m not actually doing it? I just… I’m with him now and I don’t want to kiss someone else.”

Sehun nervously looked at Luhan, awaiting his reply.

“Aw, Sehun… You’re too adorable, you know that?” Luhan grinned widely. “Of course I can’t say no to that! And, if you’re standing with your back to the audience, they won’t see if we’re actually kissing or not.”

Okay, so they had to shift their positions a little bit, but it would be alright. Sehun was just about to thank Luhan when Miss Hwang shouted for them to all get into their positions, as the performance was starting.

  


When they reached the final scene, Sehun did just as he had planned. Or, well, right before leaning down to _not_ kiss Luhan, he found Jongdae with his gaze and smiled at him. And when Sehun smiled at him for a second time, as Snow White was waking up, Jongdae blissfully smiled back. Nothing could compare to the feeling Sehun got in his stomach at that moment.

  


Except maybe how he felt when the performance was over, when Jongdae took his hand, and flashed him the most gorgeous smile. Sehun couldn't help but do the same. And as the audience showered them with the biggest applause yet, he realised that, goddammit, he was in love with the boy at his side.

  


  


~The End (for real this time)~

 

 


End file.
